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.

There is no more steely barb than that of the Infinite.

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

Love is a taste for prostitution. In fact, there is no noble pleasure that cannot be reduced to Prostitution.

Everything for me becomes allegory

It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.

My concern today is with the painting of manners of the present. The past is interesting not only by reason of the beauty which could be distilled from it by those artists for whom it was the present, but also precisely because it is the past, for its historical value. It is the same with the present. The pleasure which we derive from the representation of the present is due not only to the beauty with which it can be invested, but also to its essential quality of being present