I'm very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It's the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.

An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.

Nancy Mitford

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

Honore de Balzac

There are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of the earliest Greek art.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The empiricist... thinks he believes only what he sees, but he is much better at believing than at seeing.

George Santayana

Of all the riches that we hug, of all the pleasures we enjoy, we can carry no more out of this world than out of a dream.

John S. Bonnell

How can one better magnify the Almighty than by sniggering with him at his little jokes, particularly the poorer ones.

Samuel Beckett

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

William Shakespeare

But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit, To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself --- avoid trying to be something you're not. For a goddess, that's especially hard. We can change so easily.-Aphrodite

Rick Riordan

All things considered, I could never have survived my youth without Wagnerian music. For I seemed condemned to the society of Germans. If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take to hashish. Well, I had to take to Wagner...

Friedrich Nietzsche

I've no regrets in my personal and professional life. Being a spiritual person, I believe whatever happens, happens for the good. I simply follow what dad says, 'With music, you can reach out and spread happiness.

Yuvan Shankar Raja

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

Henry Geldzahler

I always think they're rather charming-looking, the Burmese. They have such splendid bodies! Just think what sights you'd see in England if people went about half naked as they do here!

George Orwell