When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

I say that good painters imitated nature; but that bad ones vomited it.

Theories pass. The frog remains.

My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of other pessimists.

Falsity cannot keep an idea from being beautiful; there are certain errors of such ingenuity that one could regret their not ranking among the achievements of the human mind.

A married couple are well suited when both partners usually feel the need for a quarrel at the same time.

A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us worthy of using it.