What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.

What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.

When a heretic wishes to avoid martyrdom he speaks of "Orthodoxy, True and False" and demonstrates that the True is his heresy.

When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman.

When a man tells you he got rich by hard work, ask him whose.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport: when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity. The distinction between Crime and Justice is no greater.

When a prisoner sees the door of his dungeon open, he dashes for it without stopping to think where he shall get his dinner outside.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.

When domestic servants are treated as human beings it is not worth while to keep them.