The solitary and thoughtful stroller finds a singular intoxication in this universal communion. The man who loves to lose himself in a crowd enjoys feverish delights that the egoist locked up in himself as in a box, and the slothful man like a mollusk in his shell, will be eternally deprived of. He adopts as his own all the occupations, all the joys and all the sorrows that chance offers.

The taste for pleasure attaches us to the present. The concern with our salvation leaves us hanging on the future.

A study of the Great Malady; horror of home.

Even if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine.

Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.

To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.

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