“People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion—these are the two things that govern us. And yet—”

“Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly -- that is what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion -- these are the two things that govern us.”

“The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion-these are the two things that govern us.”

“To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!”

“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”

“The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.”

“The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible.  What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.”