La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
I believe that the infinite and mysterious charm that lies in the contemplation of a moving vessel is caused, firstly, by the regularity and symmetry that are among the primordial needs of the human s...
Inspiration comes of working every day.
I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.
A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.
—But why is she weeping? She, the perfect beauty, Who could put at her feet the conquered human race, What secret malady gnaws at those sturdy flanks? —She is weeping, fool, because she has lived! And...
The sap rises and, itself a mixture of elements, flowers in a mixture of tones; the trees, the rocks, the granites cast their reflections in the mirror of the water; all the transparent objects seize...
The room was filled with deep, raucous sighs, sudden sobs, silent floods of tears. The horrified musician stopped,and going up to the man whose bliss was expressing itself most noisily, he asked him i...
Thanks be to God, Who gives us sufferingas sacred remedy for all our sins,that best and purest essence which preparesthe strong in spirit for divine delights!
L'étude du beau est un duel où l'artiste crie de frayeur avant d'être vaincu.
Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.
Dis-moi, ton coeur parfois s'envole-t-il, Agathe!
Aimer et mourirAu pays qui te ressemble!
Oh, Creator! Can monsters exist in the sight of him who alone knows how they were invented, how they invented themselves, and how they might not have invented themselves?
The man who says his prayers in the evening is a captain posting his sentries. After that he can sleep.
Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire of changing his bed. One would prefer to suffer near the fire and another is certain he would get well if he were by the window.
Εγώ λέγω ότι η μοναδική και υπέρτατη ηδονή του έρωτα έγκειται στη βεβαιότητα ότι κάνουμε το κακό.
I walk alone, absorbed in my fantastic play, — Fencing with rhymes, which, parrying nimbly, back away; Tripping on words, as on rough paving in the street, Or bumping into verses I long had dreamed to...
A friend of mine, the most innocuous dreamer who ever lived, once set a forest on fire to see, as he said, if it would catch as easily as people said. The first ten times the experiment was a failure;...
I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.