Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist.

In their choice of lovers both the male and the female reveal their essential nature. The type of human being we prefer reveals the contours of our heart. Love is an impulse which springs from the most profound depths of our beings, and upon reaching the visible surface of life carries with it an alluvium of shells and seaweed from the inner abyss. A skilled naturalist, by filing these materials, can reconstruct the oceanic depths from which they have been uprooted.

To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.

Man in a word has no nature; what he has... is history.

The trend towards pure art betrays not arrogance, as is often thought, but modesty. Art that has rid itself of human pathos is a thing without consequence.

The form most contradictory to human life that can appear among the human species is the "self-satisfied man."

I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.