The past is of no importance. The present is of no importance. It is with the future that we have to deal. For the past is what men should not have been. The present is what men ought not to be. The future is what artists are.
Men become old, but they never become good.
By persistently remaining single a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful; this very celibacy leads weaker vessels astray.
I think that in practical life there is something about success, actual success, that is a little unscrupulous, something about ambition that is scrupulous always.
Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The god of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.
I love scandals about other people, but scandals about myself don't interest me. They have not got the charm of novelty.
Moderation is a fatal thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a feast.
The English can't stand a man who is always saying he is in the right, but they are very fond of a man who admits he has been in the wrong. It is one of the best things in them.
Life is simply a 'mauvais quart d'heure' made up of exquisite moments.
There is the same world for all of us, and good and evil, sin and innocence, go through it hand in hand. To shut one's eyes to half of life that one may live securely is as though one blinded oneself that one might walk with more safety in a land of pit and precipice.