Sickness sensitizes man for observation, like a photographic plate.

The facts: nothing matters but the facts: worship of the facts leads to everything, to happiness first of all and then to wealth.

There are only two great currents in the history of mankind: the baseness which makes conservatives and the envy which makes revolutionaries.

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.

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

A poet is a man who puts up a ladder to a star and climbs it while playing a violin.

I have always derived indescribable pleasure from leading a decent woman to the edge of sin and leaving her there to live between the temptation and the fear of that sin.