Society, civilized society at least, is never very ready to believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and fascinating.
I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.
A grande passion is the privilege of people who have nothing to do.
Mere words.. Was there anything so real as words?
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
In every pleasure, cruelty has its place.
Oh! Anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often.
Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty
Had set himself to the serious study of the great aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing.
When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window.
Ah! this morning! You have lived since then.
You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing.
And unselfish people are colourless. They lack individuality.
Nothing is really beautiful unless it is useless; everything useful is ugly for it expresses a need.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
When they make up their ledger, they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy.
People die of common sense.
It would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free.
He would never again tempt innocence. He would be good.
Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that.
Details are always vulgar.
The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plentitude.
That's an awful thing, a woman's memory.
My heart shall never be put under their microscope.