44 quotes
My dear, a man with a career can have no time to waste upon his wife or his friends—he has to devote himself wholly to his enemies!
The Wisdom of the Wise (1900)
There is no misery quite so wearing as the misery of a false position. It seems to slay the body and the soul.
Those who have made unhappy marriages walk on stilts, while the happy ones are on a level with the crowd. No one sees 'em!
The Ambassador (1898)
We must know the measure of a man's desires before we can sound the depth of his regrets.
Robert Orange (1900)
Talking to you...is only thinking to myself—made easier.
The Sinner's Comedy (1892)
All is vanity,...discovering it—the greatest vanity.
The Sinner's Comedy (1892)
To die for one's great ideas is glorious—and easy. The horror is to outlive them. That is our worst capability.
The Ambassador (1898)
Faults! I adore faults! I can never find too many in any creature.
The Ambassador (1898)
Reason! A fool can give more reasons for his folly than a saint can urge for his wisdom. We have five senses, but only one conscience. That explains everything. The game is unequal.
The Wisdom of the Wise (1900)
Disillusions all come from within...from the failure of some dear and secret hope. The world makes no promises; we only dream it does; and when we wake, we cry!
The Ambassador (1898)
"Ah," said that gentleman, ever ready to discuss one friend with another—in fact, it was chiefly for this pleasure that he made them...
The Sinner's Comedy (1892)
Marriage is like a good pie spoilt in the baking. Everything is admirable except the result! It is very heavy... very, very heavy!
The Ambassador (1898)
... love comes to man through his senses—to woman through her imagination.
The Sinner's Comedy (1892)
... he fell a too ready victim to circumstances: he helped to build the altar for his own sacrifice.
The Sinner's Comedy (1892)
... political reputations are made by saying what you think, and they are kept by saying what you don't think!
The Wisdom of the Wise (1900)
... every man is practically three men. There is the man you know before he proposes: there is the man you have accepted: there is the man you have married.
The Wisdom of the Wise (1900)
He longed to make a mark, or, to express it more vulgarly, cut a figure. Now, fortunately or unfortunately, the number of figures which can be cut in the world is practically unlimited; the only difficulty is to cut precisely the kind of figure one would wish.
The Sinner's Comedy (1892)
... entertainment for entertainment's sake is the most expensive form of death ...
The Ambassador (1898)
"A man's way of loving is so different from a woman's," sighed Anna.
"There ain't nothing," said Mrs. Grimmage, "there ain't nothing that makes them so sulky and turns them against you so soon as saying anything like that."
The Sinner's Comedy (1892)
... there was never a woman so ill-suited to public life as I am. I have had to whip myself, as it were, into society, and the loneliness of it all has been terrific.
In The Life of John Oliver Hobbes (1911)