“Having to talk destroys the symphony of silence.”

“Don't talk for five minutes, there's a good chap! I've a strange feeling come over me--almost as if I were going to think!”

“I hardly ever talk- words seem such a waste, and they are none of them true. No one has yet invented a language from my point of view.”

“People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn't, for the most part' on the contrary, it's a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.”

“All this talk about 'suffering humanity' is principally drivel based on the error of transferring one's own psychology to one's neighbour. The Golden Rule is silly. If Lord Alfred Douglas (for example) did to others what he would like them to do to him, many would resent his action.”

“Some men are born sodomites, some achieve sodomy, and some have sodomy thrust upon them...”

“The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules—but you have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are not in a position to transcend them.”