Great Throughts Treasury

"The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being defeated."

"The study of beauty is a duel where the artist screams of fright before being defeated."

"The taste for pleasure attaches us to the present. The concern with our salvation leaves us hanging on the future."

"The true voyagers are those who go for the sake of traveling . . . and without quite knowing why, they say, 'Let us depart!?"

"The two good sisters Lust and Death are two friendly girls, you lavish kisses and rich in health, which always virgin and tatters belly despite the eternal culture, never came to fruition. At the sinister poet, foe, families favorite hell, courtier meager revenues, tombs and brothels show beneath their bowers a bed that never haunted remorse. and the coffin and fecund alcove in blasphemies in turn offer us, like two good sisters, terrible pleasures and frightful sweetness. Lust unclean arms, when you want to bury me? And you, Death, her rival in attractive, when will you come to engraft in their infectos myrtles your dark cypresses?"

"The unique and supreme voluptuousness of love lies in the certainty of committing evil. And men and women know from birth that in evil is found all sensual delight."

"The unique, supreme pleasure of love consists in the certainty of doing evil."

"The universe less hideous, each moment less strained?"

"The vices of man, as full of horror as one might suppose them to be, contain the proof (if in nothing else but their infinitely expandable nature) of his taste for the infinite; only, it is a taste that often takes a wrong turn."

"The whole visible universe is but a storehouse of images and signs to which the imagination will give a relative place and value; it is a sort of pasture which the imagination must digest and transform."

"The will to work must dominate, for art is long and time is brief."

"The wonderful surrounds us and soaks us like the atmosphere. And yet, we do not see."

"The world is composed of folks who can think only in common, in bands."

"The world is just a misunderstanding, thanks. As a result of a general misunderstanding all you see are in agreement. For if the people unfortunate enough to understand each other, they could not agree on anything."

"The world only goes round by misunderstanding."

"The world progresses only through misunderstanding."

"The young girl, ghost, monster, murderer of art. A young girl, as she really is. Small and silly little bastard; utterly stupidity and depravity blend. early phases of the girl has all the characteristics of the feeble and school son."

"Theology. What is the fall? If it is unity become duality, it is God who has fallen. In other words, is not creation the fall of God?"

"Theory of the true civilization. It is not to be found in gas or steam or table turning. It consists in the diminution of the traces of original sin."

"There all is order and beauty, luxury, calm and voluptuousness."

"There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness."

"There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practice what they call professions."

"There are in every man, always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan. Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to climb higher; that of Satan, or animality, is delight in descent."

"There are moments of existence when time and space are more profound, and the awareness of existence is immensely heightened."

"There are purely contemplative natures, improper fully for action, which, however, thanks to a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act quickly they had believed incapable. He who, fearing the goalkeeper to give you a sad news an hour hanging around your door without daring to go home passed; which retains fifteen days a letter without opening it or not resigned until six months give a necessary step from a year earlier, they come to feel ever suddenly precipitated into action by an irresistible force, like the arrow of a bow. The moralist and the doctor, who claim to know everything, cannot explain where it comes from them lazy and voluptuous souls so sudden and crazy energy, and how, unable to carry through as simple and necessary, are at a given moment a value luxury to run the most absurd and even the most dangerous acts. a friend of mine, the most harmless dreamer who ever lived, caught once fire to a forest, to see, he said, if the fire spread as easily as often it said. Ten times the experiment failed; but at the eleventh they had to leave too well. Another lit a cigar next to a powder keg, to see, to know, to tempt fate, to force yourself to test power, to give them player to experience the pleasures of . anxiety, for nothing, on a whim, for lack of endeavor is a kind of energy that flows from boredom and digression; and those in whom it manifests so frankly often, as I said, more indolent creatures, the most dreamers."

"There are some temptations which are so strong that they must be virtues."

"There are women who inspire desire to overcome them or enjoy them; but it slowly infuses the desire to die before his eyes."

"There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure of them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze."

"There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them."

"There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill and to create. Other men are taxable and exploitable, made for the stable, that is to say, to exercise so called professions."

"There is a certain cowardice, a certain weakness, rather, among respectable folk. Only brigands are convinced-of what? That they must succeed. And so they do succeed."

"There is a word, in a verb, something sacred which forbids us from using it recklessly. To handle a language cunningly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery."

"There is in all change something at once agreeable and infamous, something that smacks of infidelity and of moving day."

"There is no dream of love, however ideal it may be, which does not end up with a fat, greedy baby hanging from the breast."

"There is no excuse for evil; but it is bad, if known, has some merit; the irreparable defect is to do evil for nonsense."

"There is no more steely barb than that of the Infinite."

"There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start."

"There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for."

"There where all is order and beauty. Lush, calm and voluptuous."

"There, all is order and beauty luxury, calm and voluptuousness there, there is nothing else aim grace and measure, richness, quietness, and pleasure."

"There, all is order and beauty only, splendor, peace, and pleasure."

"There, there is nothing else but grace and measure, richness, quietness, and pleasure."

"These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking... Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his mind."

"These tall and handsome ships, swaying imperceptibly on tranquil waters, these sturdy ships, with their inactive, nostalgic appearance, don?t they say to us in a speechless tongue: When do we cast off for happiness?"

"This industry [photography], by invading the territories of art, has become art's most mortal enemy."

"This is Boredom! - Loaded with involuntary tear, he dreams of scaffolds as he smokes his hookah. You know him, reader, this delicate monster, hypocrite player, similar -my, -my brother!"

"This is what a girl really is. A little fool, a little slut; the greatest idiocy united with the greatest depravity."

"This life is a hospital in which each patient is possessed by the desire to change beds. One wants to suffer in front of the stove and another believes that he will get well near the window. It always seems to me that I will be better off there where I am not, and this question of moving about is one that I discuss endlessly with my soul Tell me, my soul, my poor chilled soul, what would you think about going to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you'll be able to soak up the sun like a lizard there. That city is on the shore; they say that it is built all out of marble, and that the people there have such a hatred of the vegetable, that they tear down all the trees. There's a country after your own heart -- a landscape made out of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them! My soul does not reply. Because you love rest so much, combined with the spectacle of movement, do you want to come and live in Holland, that beatifying land? Perhaps you will be entertained in that country whose image you have so often admired in museums. What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts and ships anchored at the foot of houses? My soul remains mute. Does Batavia please you more, perhaps? There we would find, after all, the European spirit married to tropical beauty. Not a word. -- Is my soul dead? Have you then reached such a degree of torpor that you are only happy with your illness? If that's the case, let us flee toward lands that are the analogies of Death. -- I've got it, poor soul! We'll pack our bags for Torneo. Let's go even further, to the far end of the Baltic. Even further from life if that is possible: let's go live at the pole. There the sun only grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation of light and darkness suppresses variety and augments monotony, that half of nothingness. There we could take long baths in the shadows, while, to entertain us, the aurora borealis send us from time to time its pink sheaf of sparkling light, like the reflection of fireworks in Hell! Finally, my soul explodes, and wisely she shrieks at me: It doesn't matter where! It doesn't matter where! As long as it's out of this world!"

"This life is a hospital where each patient is possessed by the desire to change his bed."

"This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change beds; one man would like to suffer in front of the stove, and another believes that he would recover his health beside the window."