Oh, Creator! Can monsters exist in the sight of him who alone knows how they were invented, how they invented themselves, and how they might not have invented themselves?
What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.
A friend of mine, the most innocuous dreamer who ever lived, once set a forest on fire to see, as he said, if it would catch as easily as people said. The first ten times the experiment was a failure; but on the eleventh it succeeded all too well.
Nature is a word, an allegory, a mold, an embossing, if you will.
Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man’s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.
Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.
The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day; But on the ground, among the hooting crowds, He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.
So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, be endlessly drunk.
Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.
It would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, as portrayed by Milton.
A sweetheart is a bottle of wine, a wife is a wine bottle.
The pleasure we derive from the representation of the present is due, not only to the beauty it can be clothed in, but also to its essential quality of being the present.
Any man who does not accept the conditions of life sells his soul.
Hypocrite reader my fellow my brother!
For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.
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.
Doubt, or the absence of faith and naivete, is a vice peculiar to this age, for no one is obedient nowadays; and naivete, which means the dominance of temperament in the manner, is a gift from God, possessed by very few.
In order not to feel time’s horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, get drunk and stay that way. On what? On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk!
In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.
I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust.