To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.

Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.

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

Nothing can be done except little by little.

Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place.

Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals.

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