When I think of all the harm [the Bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.

The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

Would you like to know the great drama of my life? It is that I have put my genius into my life...I have put only my talent into my works.

Behind the perfection of a man's style, must lie the passion of a man's soul.

The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.

No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.