What torments my soul is its loneliness. The more it expands among friends and the daily habits or pleasures, the more, it seems to me, it flees me and retires into its fortress. The poet who lives in solitude, but who produces much, is the one who enjoys those treasures we bear in our bosom, but which forsake us when we give ourselves to others. When one yields oneself completely to one's soul, it opens itself to one, and then it is that the capricious thing allows one the greatest of good fortunes... that of sympathizing with others, of studying itself, of painting itself constantly in its works.
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If one considered life as a simple loan, one would perhaps be less exacting. We possess actually nothing; everything goes through us.
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I live in company with a body, a silent companion, exacting and eternal.
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Experience has two things to teach. The first is that we must correct a great deal and the second, that we must not correct too much.
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What makes men of genius, or rather, what they make, is not new ideas, it is that idea - possessing them - that what has been said has still not been said enough.
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Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
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Do all the work you can; that is the whole philosophy of the good way of life.
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