The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn’t exist.

To extract beauty from one’s own milieu is one of the most difficult tasks of art.

The arts teach and moralise by their beauty alone, not by translating a philosophical or social formula. For the truly artistic person, painting has itself as it’s purpose, which is quite enough.

Yes I have loved, as no one on earth ever loved, with an insensate and furious love, so violent that I wonder it did not break my heart.

There is nothing truly beautiful but that which can never be of any use whatsoever; everything useful is ugly, for it is the expression of some need, and man’s needs are ignoble and disgusting like his own poor and infirm nature. The most useful place in a house is the water-closet.

The purity of a person’s heart can be quickly measured by how they regard animals.

When we love – we grow.

Modesty was made for the ugly.

The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.

[Great artists] do not copy what they see, but what they desire.