I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself. Sometimes I am so clever I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

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.

Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.

The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Just as the orator marks his good things by a dramatic pause, or by raising and lowering his voice, or by gesture, so the writer marks his epigrams with italics, setting the little gem, so to speak, like a jeweler.

Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.