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.

To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.

If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

Poetry has no goal other than itself; it can have no other, and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of the name of poem, than one written uniquely for the pleasure of writing a poem.

Nothing can be done except little by little.

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