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It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realize his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artist...more

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Cold were the lips, yet he kissed them. Salt was the honey of the hair, yet he tasted it with a bitter joy. He kissed the closed eyelids, and the wild...more

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I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.

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Life is one fool thing after another whereas love is two fool things after each other.

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Even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less then Anc...more

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The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her if she is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain.

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I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I sup...more

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I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every ...more

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I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours.

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Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

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As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her daughter, she is perfectly satisfied

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But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hide...more

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...art had no moral responsibility. Art, he argued, should strive only to be a beautiful object entirely separate from its creator.

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You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you ...more

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But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any ...more