Are not poets men who fulfill their hopes prematurely?

Thinking is seeing.... Every human science is based on deduction, which is a slow process of seeing by which we work up from the effect to the cause; or, in a wider sense, all poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.

What makes friendship indissolute and what doubles its charms is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude.

The secret of the nobility and beauty of great ladies lies in the art with which they can shed their veils. In such situations, they become like ancient statues. If they kept the merest scarf on, they would be lewd. Your bourgeois woman will always try to cover her nakedness.

Are not our noblest feelings as it were the poems of our will.

A sacrament by virtue of which each imparts nothing but vexations to the other.

It's catastrophies which turn wise and strong people into philosophers.