Art is an infinitely precious good, a draught both refreshing and cheering which restores the stomach and the mind to the natural equilibrium of the ideal.

What a mysterious faculty is that queen of the faculties!

Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.

I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.

Remembering is only a new form of suffering.

A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.

On the day when a young writer corrects his first proof-sheet he is as proud as a schoolboy who has just got his first dose of pox.