 We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. |
| The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs. |
| Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility. |
| Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation. |
| For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation. |
| Nature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances. |
| The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes. |
| Nothing can be done except little by little. |
| The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries with terror before being defeated. |
| There is no dream of love, however ideal it may be, which does not end up with a fat, greedy baby hanging from the breast. |
| The priest is an immense being because he makes the crowd believe astonishing things. |
| The world only goes round by misunderstanding. |
| It would perhaps be nice to be alternately the victim and the executioner. |
| I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror. |
| But a dandy can never be a vulgar man. |
| Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction. |
| Any newspaper, from the first line to the last, is nothing but a web of horrors, I cannot understand how an innocent hand can touch a newspaper without convulsing in disgust. |
| Whether you come from heaven or hell, what does it matter, O Beauty! |
| As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life. |
| Always be a poet, even in prose. |
