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

“Duty is what one expects from others.”

“JACKYour duty as a gentleman calls you back. ALGERNONMy duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures in the smallest degree.”

“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—”

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

“If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.”

“On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.”