It would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, as portrayed by Milton.

If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist.

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 immense appetite we have for biography comes from a deep-seated sense of equality.

If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.

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.

Perfumes, colours and sounds echo one another.