Man alone can enslave man.

It is only necessary to know that love is a direction and not a state of the soul. If one is unaware of this, one falls to despair at the first onslaught of affliction.

A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is anonymous about it.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny.

It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.

To wish to escape from solitude is cowardice. Friendship is not to be sought, not to be dreamed, not to be desired; it is to be exercised (it is a virtue).