“Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

“As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.”

“Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy.”

“I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing. ”

“Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.”

“It is a great mistake for men to give up paying compliments, for when they give up saying what is charming, they give up thinking what is charming.”

“Ah! The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analyzed, women...merely adored.”