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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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Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.

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loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still ...more

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Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his soul?

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Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of warning, had...more

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But then one regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality.

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the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life.

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You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.