No duty, however, binds us to these so-called laws, whose corrupting influence menaces what is noblest in our being.

There are things one does not say for a long time, but, once they are said, one never stops repeating them.

Woe to the man who in the first moments of a love-affair does not believe that it will last forever! Woe to him who even in the arms of some mistress who has just yielded to him maintains an awareness of trouble to come and foresees that he may later tear himself away!

Art for art's sake, with no purpose, for any purpose perverts art. But art achieves a purpose which is not its own. (1804)

Nearly always, so as to live at peace with ourselves, we disguise our own impotence and weakness as calculation and policy; it is our way of placating that half of our being which is in a sense a spectator of the other.

The great question in life is the suffering we cause, and the most ingenious metaphysics do not justify the man who has broken the heart that loved him.

There is a bizarre notion according to which it is claimed that because men are corrupt, it is necessary to give certain of them all the more power... on the contrary, they must be given less power.