Were there no desire there would be no virtue, and because one man desires what another does not, who shall say whether the child of his desire be Vice or Virtue?

Imagination is but another name for super intelligence.

Absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullness of it and the pomposities of it

Virtue practiced to be seen is not real virtue; vice which fears to be seen is real vice

I loved her. I still love her, though I curse her in my sleep, so nearly one are love and hate, the two most powerful and devasting emotions that control man, nations, life.

There is no man who desires as passionately as a Russian. If we could imprison a Russian desire beneath a fortress, that fortress would explode.