To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.

The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.

The most decisive actions of life are most often unconsidered actions.

Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is...

Not everyone can be an orphan.

It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

In hell there is no other punishment than to begin over and over again the tasks left unfinished in your lifetime.

No theory is good unless it permits, not rest, but the greatest work. No theory is good except on condition that one use it to go on beyond.

Sin is whatever obscures the soul.

The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.

The most important things to say are those which often I did not think necessary for me to say - because they were too obvious.

"Therefore" is a word the poet must not know.

To what a degree the same past can leave different marks - and especially admit of different interpretations.

Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.

Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the...

There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them.

The most gifted natures are perhaps also the most trembling.

The color of truth is gray.

Only those things are beautiful which are inspired by madness and written by reason.