There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannises over the body. There is the despot who tyrannises over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannises over soul and body alike. The first is called the prince. The second is called the pope. The third is called the people. Costume is a growth, an evolution, and a most important, perhaps the most important, sign of the manners, customs, and mode of life of each century. I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love, but there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. What consoles one nowadays is not repentance but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date. Ideals are dangerous things. Realities are better. They wound, but they are better. Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude. An eternal smile is much more wearisome than a perpetual frown. The one sweeps away all possibilities, the other suggests a thousand. To disagree with three-fourths of England on all points is one of the first elements of vanity, which is a deep source of consolation in all moments of spiritual doubt. Women live by their emotions and for them, they have no philosophy of life. As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have a fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar it will cease to be popular. There is only one thing worse than injustice, and that is justice without her sword in her hand. When right is not might it is evil. We spend our days, each one of us, in looking for the secret of life. Well, the secret of life is in art. The truth isn't quite the sort of thing that one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. If one plays good music people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk. How fond women are of doing dangerous things. It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most. A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on. Englishwomen conceal their feelings till after they are married. They show them then. Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. Actions are the first tragedy in life, words are the second. Words are perhaps the worst. Words are merciless. Life is terrible. It rules us, we do not rule it. In art there is no such thing as a universal truth. A truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true. One's days are too brief to take the burden of another's sorrows on one's shoulders. Each man lives his own life, and pays his own price for living it. The only pity is that one has to pay so often for a single fault. One has to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man Destiny never closes her accounts.