I detest my fellow-beings and do not feel that I am their fellow at all

What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.

He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him.

Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal.

It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts.

Always 'duty.' I am sick of the word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone into our ears 'Duty, duty!' Ah! by Jove! one's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.