Women who are to some extent resistant, whom one cannot possess at once, whom one does not even know at first whether one will ever possess, are the only interesting ones.

It is desire that engenders belief and if we fail as a rule to take this into account, it is because most of the desires that create beliefs end only with our own life.

What artists call posterity is the posterity of the work of art.

Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey.

A little insomnia is not without its value in making us appreciate sleep, in throwing a ray of light upon that darkness.

The memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment.

Do you suppose that it is within your power to insult me? You evidently are not aware to whom you are speaking? Do you imagine that the envenomed spittle of five hundred little gentlemen of your type, heaped one upon another, would succeed in slobbering so much as the tips of my august toes?