Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation. It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.

Beauty

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

Brotherhood

The brotherhood of men does not imply their equality. Families have their fools and their men of genius, their black sheep and their saints, their worldly successes and their worldly failures. A man should treat his brothers lovingly and with justice, according to the deserts of each. But the deserts of every brother are not the same.

Death and Dying

Ignore death up to the last moment; then, when it can't be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphia and shuffle off in a coma. Thoroughly sensible, humane and scientific, eh?

Experience

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

Facts

Facts don't cease to exist because they are ignored.

Fanatics and Fanaticism

A fanatic is a man who consciously over compensates a secret doubt.

Free Will

A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will's freedom after it.

Heroes and Heroism

What with making their way and enjoying what they have won, heroes have no time to think. But the sons of heroes --ah, they have all the necessary leisure.

Intelligence and Intellectuals

Man is an intelligence, not served by, but in servitude to his organs.

Memory

Every man's memory is his private literature.

Obsession

Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful.

Sacrifice

There's only one effectively redemptive sacrifice, the sacrifice of self-will to make room for the knowledge of God.

Self-improvement

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

Spirit and Spirituality

Pure Spirit, one hundred degrees proof -- that's a drink that only the most hardened contemplation-guzzlers indulge in. Bodhisattvas dilute their Nirvana with equal parts of love and work.

Tragedies

We participate in tragedy. At comedy we only look.

Truth

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.