The pleasure we derive from the representation of the present is due, not only to the beauty it can be clothed in, but also to its essential quality of being the present.

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds, who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer. Exiled on the ground in the midst of the jeering crowd, his giant's wings keep him from walking.

I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old.

How little remains of the man I once was, save the memory of him! But remembering is only a new form of suffering.

But a dandy can never be a vulgar man

What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound than a portrait.

There can be no progress-real, moral prgress-except in the individual and by the individual himself.