When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.

Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.

The aim of love is to love. No more, no less.

American girls are as clever at concealing their parents as English women are at concealing their past.

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!

One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.