A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias. England will never be civilized until she has added Utopia to her dominions.
The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.
The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule.
I feel sure that if I lived in the country for six months, I should become so unsophisticated that no one would take the slightest notice of me.
Society, civilized society, at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability is of much less value than the possession of a good chef. And, after all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold entrees.
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
A man whose desire is to be something separate from himself, to be a member of Parliament, or a successful grocer, or a prominent solicitor, or a judge, or something equally tedious, invariably succeeds in being what he wants to be. That is his punishment. Those who want a mask have to wear it.
The English country gentleman galloping after the fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.
In my young days, one never met anyone in society who worked for their living. It was not considered the thing.
One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.