She is unable to dream, think or love. In a woman, poetry never comes naturally, but always as the result of education. Only the woman of the world is a woman; the rest are simply females.

Genius is the talent of a person who is dead.

One of the proud joys of the man of letters - if that man of letters is an artist - is to feel within himself the power to immortalize at will anything he chooses to immortalize. Insignificant though he may be, he is conscious of possessing a creative divinity. God creates lives; the man of imagination creates fictional lives which may make a profound and as it were more living impression on the world's memory.

Surely nothing has to listen to so many stupid remarks as a painting in a museum.

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

Princes enjoy themselves like children in the company of ordinary human beings.

People don't like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug.