There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.

There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise what they call professions.

What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound than a portrait.

Those men get along best with women who can get along best without them.

I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust.

Finer than any sand are dusts of gold that gleam, Vague starpoints, in the mystic iris of their eyes.

Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible.