LD Durham

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The fact is, the public make use of the classics of a country as a means of checking the progress of Art. They degrade the classics into authorities. They use them as bludgeons for preventing the free expression of Beauty in new forms.”
― Oscar Wilde

“So why are you telling me?"

"Well, for one thing, because I expect that Carnac will try to find some way to mention it, and if I hadn't told you first, you'd be thoroughly pissed off about it when he did."

Warrick said nothing. Well, it had been a fifty-fifty bet which way round would prove more hassle in the end.

"Warrick, if there'd been another way—"

"No, no. I understand. I was merely contemplating the fact that informing me that you had sex with someone else last night—after drugging him—falls under the heading of your being unusually considerate.”
― Manna Francis, First Against the Wall

“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.”
― John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage