Theophile Gautier Quotes - Page 2

Sometimes he sits at your feet looking into your face with an expression so gentle and caressing that the depth of his gaze startles you.

High art alone is eternal and the bust outlives the city.

To extract beauty from one's own milieu is one of the most difficult tasks of art.

I am one of those for whom superfluity is a necessity.

What I write is not for little girls.

The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn't exist.

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

The pleasure in traveling consists of the obstacles, the fatigue, and even the danger. What charm can anyone find in an excursion when he is always sure of reaching his destination, of having horses ready waiting for him, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the eases and comfort he can enjoy in his own home! One of the great misfortunes of modern life is the want of any sudden surprise, and the absence of all adventure. Everything is so well arranged.

[Great artists] do not copy what they see, but what they desire.

Once [a cat] has given its love, what absolute confidence, what fidelity of affection!

The years I have squandered in puerile excitement, in going hither and thither, in seeking to force nature and time, I ought to have spent in solitude and meditation, in endeavoring to make myself worthy of being loved.

I am a man for whom the outside world exists.

I was born to travel and write verse.

There is nothing truly beautiful but that which can never be of any use whatsoever; everything useful is ugly, for it is the expression of some need, and man's needs are ignoble and disgusting like his own poor and infirm nature. The most useful place in a house is the water-closet.

What well-bred woman would refuse her heart to a man who had just saved her life? Not one; and gratitude is a short cut which speedily leads to love.

The cat is a dilettante in fur.

Good heavens! what a foolish thing is this pretended perfectibility of the human race which is continually being dinned into our ears!

Sooner barbarity than boredom.

Those horses must have been Spanish jennets, born of mares mated with a zephyr; for they went as swiftly as the wind, and the moon, which had risen at our departure to give us light, rolled through the sky like a wheel detached from its carriage.

Whatever may have been said of the satiety of pleasure and of the disgust which usually follows passion, any man who has anything of a heart and who is not wretchedly and hopelessly blasé feels his love increased by his happiness, and very often the best way to retain a lover ready to leave is to give one's self up to him without reserve.

Critical lice are like body lice, which desert corpses to seek the living.

[A cat] will make itself the companion of your hours of work, of loneliness, or of sadness.

[A cat] will lie the whole evening on your knee, purring and happy in your society.

It may well be that the pictures of Courbet, Manet, Monet and their like contain beauties which escape the notice of such old romantic heads as ours, already streaked with silver threads.

It is difficult to obtain the friendship of a cat.