He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.

And, drunk with my own madness, I shouted at him furiously, "Make life beautiful! Make life beautiful!

Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject, nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling.

There is a word, in a verb, something sacred which forbids us from using it recklessly. To handle a language cunningly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.

The idea of beauty which man creates for himself imprints itself on his whole attire, crumples or stiffens his dress, rounds off or squares his gesture, and in the long run even ends by subtly penetrating the very features of his face. Man ends by looking like his ideal self. These engravings can be translated either into beauty or ugliness; in one direction, they become caricatures, in the other, antique statues.

Love is the natural occupation of the man of leisure.

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