Dandyism is the last flicker of heroism in decadent ages.... Dandyism is a setting sun; like the declining star, it is magnificent, without heat and full of melancholy. But alas! the rising tide of democracy, which spreads everywhere and reduces everything to the same level, is daily carrying away these last champions of human pride, and submerging, in the waters of oblivion, the last traces of these remarkable myrmidons.

Being a useful man has always seemed to me to be something truly hideous.

We revel in the laxness of the path we take.

The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.

For each letter received from a creditor, write fifty lines on an extraterrestrial subject and you will be saved.

To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.

Music fathoms the sky.