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

Twenty years of romance makes a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage makes her something like a public building.

America is not a country, it is a world.

Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art

It is curious how vanity helps the successful man and wrecks the failure.

A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want.

It is a vulgar error to suppose that America was ever discovered. It was merely detected.