There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about.

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.

As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

I think it is perfectly natural for any artist to admire intensely and love a young man. It is an incident in the life of almost every artist.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.

Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

London is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don’t know.

Technique is really personality. That is the reason why the artist cannot teach it, why the pupil cannot learn it, and why the aesthetic critic can understand it.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.