The whole visible universe is but a storehouse of images and signs to which the imagination will give a relative place and value; it is a sort of pasture which the imagination must digest and transform.

...an industry which can furnish results identical to nature must be the absolute in art.

He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.

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.

What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.

Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?

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.