A quiet city is a contradiction in terms. It is a thing uncanny, spectral.
I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect, either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him.
Most women are not as young as they are painted.
No Roman ever was able to say, 'I dined last night with the Borgias'.
True dandyism is the result of an artistic temperament working upon a fine body within the wide limits of fashion.
The past is a work of art, free of irrelevancies and loose ends.