Even if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine.
If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.
In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.
In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.
Inspiration comes of working every day.
It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.
It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.
Whether you come from heaven or hell, what does it matter, O Beauty!
There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.
To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.
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.
Who would dare assign to art the sterile function of imitating nature?
There is no more steely barb than that of the Infinite.
Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.
What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.