The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. ... One might point out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had great and individual artists, and great, individual men. One might point out how Louis XIV, by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist.

Surely Love is a wonderful thing. It is more precious than emeralds, and dearer than fine opals. Pearls and pomegranates cannot buy it, nor is it set forth in the marketplace. It may not be purchased of the merchants, for can it be weighed out in the balance for gold.

Pleasure without Champagne is purely artificial.

I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of eternity.

Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight For the greatest tragedy of them all Is never to feel the burning light.

In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!