La, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté Luxe, calme et volupté There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, Richness, quietness, and pleasure.

The man who is unable to people his solitude is equally unable to be alone in a bustling crowd. The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself or some one else, as he chooses. [...] The solitary and thoughtful stroller finds a singular intoxication in this universal communion. [...] What men call love is a very small, restricted, feeble thing compared with this ineffable orgy, this divine prostitution of the soul giving itself entire...to the unexpected as it comes along, the stranger as he passes.

I am bored in France because everyone resembles Voltaire.

All the visible universe is nothing but a shop of images and signs.

In the domain of painting and statuary, the present-day credo of the worldly wise, especially in France, is this: ... I believe that art is, and can only be, the exact reproduction of nature... An avenging God has heard the prayers of this multitude; Daguerre was his messiah.

Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity.

We are all born marked for evil.