Beauty is the sole ambition, the exclusive goal of Taste.

In certain almost supernatural states of the soul, the profundity of life reveals itself entirely in the spectacle, however ordinary it may be, before one's eyes. It becomes its symbol.

On the vaporization and the centralization of the Self. All is there.

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.

Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.

As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning, . . . [then] they fall down the curtains.

It would perhaps be nice to be alternately the victim and the executioner.