As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-balancing of economic interests, what room will there be for virtue? When Nature has been so subjugated that she has lost all her original forms, where will that leave the plastic arts? And so on. In the mean time, things are going to get very murky.

The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.

Concern for morality makes every work of the imagination false and stupid.

Adultery ... could be as banal as marriage.

After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identical days began again.

Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

Talent is long patience.