There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.

The idea of beauty which man creates for himself imprints itself on his whole attire, crumples or stiffens his dress, rounds off or squares his gesture, and in the long run even ends by subtly penetrating the very features of his face. Man ends by looking like his ideal self. These engravings can be translated either into beauty or ugliness; in one direction, they become caricatures, in the other, antique statues.

What I say is that the supreme and singular joy of making love resides in the certainty of doing evil.

Perfumes, colours and sounds echo one another.

I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.

The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.

For me, Romanticism is the most recent and the most current expression of beauty.