Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The form of a town changes more swiftly alas! Than the heart of a mortal.
God is the only being who, in order to reign, doesn't even need to exist.
There are some temptations which are so strong that they must be virtues.
All which is beautiful and noble is the result of reason and calculation.
It would perhaps be nice to be alternately the victim and the executioner.
To be a great man and a saint to oneself, that's the only important thing.
I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.
Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry.
Photographers, you will never become artists. All you are is mere copiers.
To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.
To be a great man and a saint for oneself, that is the only important thing.
My soul travels on the smell of perfume like the souls of other men on music.
I am a cemetery abhorred by the moon, In which long worms crawl like remorse.
If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.
Every healthy man can do without food for two days — but without poetry, never!
Pure draughtsmen are philosophers and dialecticians. Colourists are epic poets.
However incoherent a human existence may be, human unity is not bothered by it.
What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice.
Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.
What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.
I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge.
For me, Romanticism is the most recent and the most current expression of beauty.
There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.
In putting off what one has to do, one runs the risk of never being able to do it.
When a singer puts his hand on his heart, it means usually, I will always love you!
Blessed art Thou, Lord, who giveth suffering As a divine remedy for our impurities.
There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.
Go then, a starveling girl With no perfume or pearls, Only your nudity O my beauty!
Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself.
Where one should see only what is beautiful, our public looks only for what is true.
Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by a desire to change his bed.
The man who says his evening prayer is a captain posting his sentinels. He can sleep.
The priest is an immense being because he makes the crowd believe astonishing things.
Amer savoir, celui qu'on tire du voyage! Bitter is the knowledge gained in travelling.
Multitude, solitude: equal and interchangeable terms for the active and prolific poet.
The immense appetite we have for biography comes from a deep-seated sense of equality.
In my mind it strolls, as well as in my apartment. A cat, strong, sweet and delightful.
No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.
Even if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine.
...an industry which can furnish results identical to nature must be the absolute in art.
There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.
Nearly all our originality comes from the stamp that time impresses upon our sensibility.
Evil is done without effort, naturally, it's destiny; good is always the product of skill.
The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries with terror before being defeated.
The old Paris is no more (the form of a city changes faster, alas! than a mortal's heart).
the Devil's hand directs our every move - / the things we loathed become the things we love
What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound than a portrait.
This life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with a desire to change his bed.
The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before he is defeated.
The immense profundity of thought in vulgar locutions, like holes dug by generations of ants.