. It
comes naturally and inevitably out of man. It is the point to which all
development tends. It is the differentiation to which all organisms
grow. It is the perfection that is inherent in every mode of life and
toward which every mode of life quickens. Individualism exercises no
compulsion over man. On the contrary, it says to man that he should
suffer no compulsion to be exercised over him. It does not try to force
people to be good. It knows that people are good when they are let
alone. Man will develop individualism out of himself. Man is now so
developing individualism. To ask whether individualism is practical is
like asking whether evolution is practical. Evolution is the law of
life, and there is no evolution except towards individualism.

The longer I live the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough
for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, 'les
grand peres ont toujours tort.'

No woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They never have
anything to say but they say it charmingly.

Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If
the cave men had known how to laugh history would have been different.

I wonder who it was defined man as a rational animal. It was the most
premature definition ever given. Man is many things, but he is not
rational.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

To get into the best society nowadays one has either to feed people,
amuse people, or shock people--that is all.

You should never try to understand women. Women are pictures, men are
problems. If you want to know what a woman really means--which, by the
way, is always a dangerous thing to do--look at her, don't listen to
her.

Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to
their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds
as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is
no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and
chatter at tea parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped
smile and their fashionable mauve.

Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary
charm in them--sometimes.

To have been well brought up is a great drawback nowadays. It shuts one
out from so much.

The people who have adored me--there have not been very many, but there
have been some--have always insisted on living on long after I had