From the moment that photography appeared, the descriptive genre began to invade Letters... In verse as in prose the décor and exterior aspects of life took an almost excessive place.

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.

Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.

What golden hour of life, what glittering moment will ever equal the pain its loss can cause?

It is a law of nature that we defend ourselves from one affection only by means of another.

Man cannot bear his own portrait. The image of his limits and his own determinacy exasperates him, drives him mad.

An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels it votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next.