Man desires, woman is desired.

Woman, as Nature has created her and as she is currently reared by man, is his enemy and can only be his slave or his despot, but never his companion. She will be able to become his companion only when she has the same rights as he, when she is his equal in education and work.

A real apple is more beautiful than a painted one, and a live woman is more beautiful than a Venus of stone.

A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you understand very quickly.

Until then I had lived as I had painted and versified - that is, I never got far beyond priming canvas, beyond penning an outline, a first act, a first stanza. There are simply people who start all sorts of things and yet never finish any of them. And that was the kind of person I was.

Why become well-versed in science and the arts if not to impress a lovely little woman?

Above all else I am a dilettante in life.