It is easy to understand why the rabble dislike cats. A cat is beautiful; it suggests ideas of luxury, cleanliness, voluptuous pleasures.

I am the vampire at my own veins.

It is regrettable that, among the Rights of Man, the right of contradicting oneself has been forgotten.

Beware of all the paradoxical in love. It is simplicity which saves, it is simplicity which brings happiness...Love should be love.

I sit in the sky like a sphinx misunderstood; My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans; I hate the movement that displaces the rigid lines, With lips untaught neither tears nor laughter do I know.

Alas! Man's vices, horrible as they are supposed to be, contain the positive proof of his taste for the infinite.

That in all times, mediocrity has dominated, that is indubitable; but that it reigns more than ever, that it is becoming absolutely triumphant and inhibiting, this is what is as true as it is distressing.