the Devil's hand directs our every move - / the things we loathed become the things we love

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

The dandy should aspire to be uninterruptedly sublime. He should live and sleep in front of a mirror.

By nature, by necessity itself, [primitive man] is encyclopedic, while civilized man finds himself confined in the infinitely small regions of specialization.

It is the pleasure of astonishing others, and the proud satisfaction of never being astonished by them.

Our religion is itself profoundly sad - a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full liberty to the individual and asks no better than to be celebrated in each man's own language - so long as he knows anguish and is a painter.

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.