I felt passing over me the wind of the wing of madness.

Life swarms with innocent monsters.

Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.

Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally; goodness is always the product of some art.

Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?

Progress, this great heresy of decay.

Evil comes up softly like a flower.

A work of art should be like a well-planned crime.

Those men get along best with women who can get along best without them.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

Any man who does not accept the conditions of life sells his soul.

The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.

A silent mouth is sweet to hear.

The People adore authority.

Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.

I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.

Remembering is only a new form of suffering.

I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.

Whether you come from heaven or hell, what does it matter, O Beauty!