I needn't tell you that success and failure prove nothing - the whole thing is a lottery. It's pleasant to succeed; but for a philosophic mind it oughtn't to be very upsetting to fail.

Humanity is outraged in me and with me.

Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.

The artist vocation is to send light into the human heart.

Simplicity, a delicate silence about oneself, increases their worth and makes one love those whom one admires.

Art belongs to all times and to all countries; its special benefit is precisely to be still living when everything else seems dying; that is why Providence shields it from too personal or too general passions, and grants it a patient and persevering organization, durable sensibility, and the contemplative sense in which lies invincible faith.

Sex is the most respectable and holy thing in all creation, the most serious act in life.