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.
All fashions are charming, or rather relatively charming, each one being a new striving, more or less well conceived, after beauty, an approximate statement of an ideal, the desire for which constantly teases the unsatisfied human mind.
Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?
Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue.
That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which it follows that irregularity – that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are a essential part and characteristic of beauty.
An artist is an artist only because of his exquisite sense of beauty, a sense which shows him intoxicating pleasures, but which at the same time implies and contains an equally exquisite sense of all deformities and all disproportion.
How little remains of the man I once was, save the memory of him! But remembering is only a new form of suffering.
Any healthy man can go without food for two days – but not without poetry.
If the word doesn’t exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn’t exist.
What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound than a portrait.
Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.
In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.
What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice.
Genius is simply childhood, rediscovered by an act of will.
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.
Drowsing, they take the noble attitude of a great sphinx, who, in a desert land, sleeps always, dreaming dreams that have no end.
Inspiration comes of working every day.
I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge.
As a remedy against all ills – poverty, sickness, and melancholy – only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work.
Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.