Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob. It is through the voice of one crying in the wilderness that the ways of the gods must be prepared.

I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men, and the colour of things: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all things in a phrase, all existence in an epigram: whatever I touched I made beautiful

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

If one plays good music, people don't listen and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

Artists, like the Greek gods, are only revealed to one another.