“One’s duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.”

Talent is nothing but long patience.

Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling.

The principal thing in this world is to keep one’s soul aloft.

I spent the morning putting in a comma and the afternoon removing it.

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.

Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.

Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.

It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find.

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat.

I don’t believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is.

One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.