The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one’s self.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oh! Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the colored canvas, reveals himself.
Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.