What well-bred woman would refuse her heart to a man who had just saved her life? Not one; and gratitude is a short cut which speedily leads to love.
Whatever may have been said of the satiety of pleasure and of the disgust which usually follows passion, any man who has anything of a heart and who is not wretchedly and hopelessly blasé feels his love increased by his happiness, and very often the best way to retain a lover ready to leave is to give one's self up to him without reserve.
Nothing is really beautiful unless it is useless; everything useful is ugly, for it expresses a need, and the needs of man are ignoble and disgusting, like his poor weak nature. The most useful place in a house is the lavatory.
Pleasure has turned into passion much more quickly than I should ever have thought possible.
I am one of those for whom superfluity is a necessity.
Angels' kisses must be like this; true paradise is not in heaven but on the lips of one's beloved.
The public, which has been wrong before and is wrong now, can accept only demons and angels on the stage.
The cat is a dilettante in fur.
Yes, the work comes out more beautiful from a material that resists the process, verse, marble, onyx, or enamel.
What I write is not for little girls.
I was born to travel and write verse.
Critical lice are like body lice, which desert corpses to seek the living.
It is a difficult matter to gain the affection of a cat. He is a philosophical, methodical animal, tenacious of his own habits, fond of order and neatness, and disinclined to extravagant sentiment. He will be your friend, if he finds you worthy of friendship, but not your slave.
Eyes so transparent that through them the soul is seen.
It is difficult to obtain the friendship of a cat. It is a philosophical animal... one that does not place its affections thoughtlessly.
Yes, I have loved as none in the world ever loved—with an insensate and furious passion—so violent that I am astonished it did not cause my heart to burst asunder. Ah, what nights—what nights!
If thou wilt be mine, I shall make thee happier than God Himself in His paradise. The angels themselves will be jealous of thee. Tear off that funeral shroud in which thou about to wrap thyself. I am Beauty, I am Youth, I am Life. Come to me! Together we shall be Love.
Tear up that funeral shroud—you are going to smother yourself in it. I am beauty, I am youth, I am life—come to me, and together we will be Love itself....Our life together will flow by like a dream, and it will be as one perpetual kiss.
Chance is the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.
You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.
Once [a cat] has given its love, what absolute confidence, what fidelity of affection! It will make itself the companion of your hours of work, of loneliness, or of sadness. It will lie the whole evening on your knee, purring and happy in your society, and leaving the company of creatures of its own society to be with you.
No one is truly dead until they are no longer loved.
Sooner barbarity than boredom.
Here a few poor and stunted flowers stood with drooping heads, like a convent of consumptive girls, waiting for a ray of sunlight to dry out their leaves already half-rotten with the damp.
Books follow morals, and not morals books.
If you are worthy of its affection, a cat will be your friend but never your slave.
Who can believe that there is no soul behind those luminous eyes?
Yes, I have loved, as no one on earth ever loved, with an insensate and furious love, so violent that I wonder it did not break my heart.
The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn't exist.
And then again, I am no longer quite such a good-looking young fellow that tapestries leap off the wall in my honour.
Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.
A cat will be your friend, but never your slave.
Any man who does not have his inner world to translate is not an artist.
To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.
Those horses must have been Spanish jennets, born of mares mated with a zephyr; for they went as swiftly as the wind, and the moon, which had risen at our departure to give us light, rolled through the sky like a wheel detached from its carriage...
The very essence of ballet is poetic, deriving from dreams rather than from reality. About the only reason for its existence is to enable us to remain in the world of fantasy and escape from the people we rub shoulders with in the street. Ballets are the dreams of poets taken seriously.
One the great misfortunes of modern life is the want of any sudden surprise, and the absence of all adventures. Everything is so well arranged.
I should have found you detestable.—Forgive that supposition.—By living with you on terms of close intimacy, I should have occasion, I doubt not, to see you in a cotton night-cap or in some absurd or grotesque domestic situation.—You.
I longed to be able to gather my whole life-force into a single impulse, and transmit it to her and blow into her frozen remains the fire that was consuming me.
The pleasure in traveling consists of the obstacles, the fatigue, and even the danger. What charm can anyone find in an excursion when he is always sure of reaching his destination, of having horses ready waiting for him, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the eases and comfort he can enjoy in his own home!
Nothing is truly beautiful unless it cannot be used for anything; everything that is useful is ugly because it is the expression of some need, and those of man are ignoble and disgusting, like his poor and infirm nature.
I belong to those for whom the superfluous is necessary.
The years I have squandered in puerile excitement, in going hither and thither, in seeking to force nature and time, I ought to have spent in solitude and meditation, in endeavoring to make myself worthy of being loved.
I am a man for whom the outside world exists.
