“There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature, that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination, and disobedience its charm.”

“I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get ride of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it is forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”

“We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”

“those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin.”

“I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.”

“The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faultsand all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet ofclay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love themknowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them allthe more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect,who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands,or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us – else what useis love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. Alllives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that.It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that theyare making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idolsmerely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage tocome down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraidthat I might lose your love, as I have lost it now.”

“The great events of life often leave one unmoved; they pass out of consciousness, and, when thinks of them, become unreal. Even the scarlet flowers of passion seem to grow in the same meadow as the poppies of oblivion. We reject the burden of their memory, and have anodynes against them. But the little things, the things of no moment, remain with us. In some tiny ivory cell the brain stores the most delicate, and the most fleeting impressions.”