All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country... and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it.

Every period of time is a sphinx that throws itself into the abyss as soon as its riddle has been solved.

Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistable force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts.

Matrimony; the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented.

At noon I feel as though I could devour all the elephants of Hindostan, and then pick my teeth with the spire of Strasburg cathedral; in the evening I become so sentimental that I would fain drink up the Milky Way without reflecting how indigestible I should find the little fixed stars, and by night there is the Devil himself broke loose in my head and no mistake.

Out of my own great woe I make my little songs.

There is one thing on earth more terrible than English music, and that is English painting.