I like to walk down Bond Street, thinking of all the things I don't desire.

An echo of music, a face in the street, the wafer of the new moon, a wanton thought - only in the iridescence of things the vagabond soul is happy.

People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in that mirror.

We need new friends; some of us are cannibals who have eaten their old friends up; others must have ever-renewed audiences before whom to re-enact the ideal version of their lives.

What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?

We should nourish our souls on the dew of Poesy, and manure them as well.