Unable to suppress love, the Church wanted at least to disinfect it, and it created marriage.

If a given combination of trees, mountains, water, and houses, say a landscape, is beautiful, it is not so by itself, but because of me, of my favor, of the idea or feeling I attach to it.

Love is the natural occupation of the man of leisure.

A work of art should be like a well-planned crime.

One must work, if not from inclination, at least out of despair — since it proves, on close examination, that work is less boring than amusing oneself.

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.

In our corruption we perceive beauties unrevealed to ancient times.