A work of art should be like a well-planned crime.

Alas! Man's vices, horrible as they are supposed to be, contain the positive proof of his taste for the infinite.

The old Paris is no more (the form of a city changes faster, alas! than a mortal's heart).

It is at despair at not being able to be noble and beautiful by natural means that we have made up our faces so strangely.

The man who says his evening prayer is a captain posting his sentinels. He can sleep.

Today I felt pass over me A breath of wind from the wings of madness.

From his soft fur, golden and brown, Goes out so sweet a scent, one night I might have been embalmed in it By giving him one little pet. He is my household's guardian soul; He judges, he presides, inspires All matters in his royal realm; Might he be fairy? or a god? When my eyes, to this cat I love Drawn as by a magnet's force, Turn tamely back upon that appeal, And when I look within myself, I notice with astonishment The fire of his opal eyes, Clear beacons glowing, living jewels, Taking my measure, steadily.