The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.

Art is not to be taught in Academies. It is what one looks at, not what one listens to, that makes the artist. The real schools should be the streets.

Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered.

I am sorry my life is so marred and maimed by extravagance. But I cannot live otherwise. I, at any rate, pay the penalty of suffering.

The poet is the supreme artist, for he is the master of colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts.

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions.