There is always a ceiling, and never a floor.
Being
Identity, that spectator of what he calls himself,
That net and aggregate of energies in transient combination.
—Cunningham
We wish, not to be understood, but to be misunderstood exactly as we misunderstand ourselves.
We say of indelible characters from life that they could be fictional; and from books, that they could be real.
Boredom can be fatal, though it never appears on the coroner’s report.
Humanity has progressed vastly with how, less with what, and not at all with why.
True freaks don’t fly flags.
The basest viciousness usually wraps itself in a hygienic metaphor.
Only after he has exhausted his other resources does the boy begin to torture insects, or the ruler his subjects.
Moral progress is only economic progress: men in the mass have the ethics they can afford.
Diligence is the most menacing of the virtues.