There is no true. There are merely ways of perceiving truth. — Gustave Flaubert

"As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use."

"Rien nest humiliant comme de voir les sots réussir dans les entreprises où lon échoue."

"Jai eu, aussi, moi, mon époque nerveuse, mon époque sentimentale, et jen porte encore, comme un galérien, la marque au cou. Avec ma main brûlée jai le droit maintenant décrire des phrases sur la nature du feu."

"Dont talk to me about your hideous reality! What does it mean — reality? Some see things black, others blue — the multitude sees them brute-fashion. There is nothing less natural than Michael Angelo; there is nothing more powerful! The anxiety about eternal truth is a mark of contemporary baseness; and art will become, if things go on in that way, a sort of poor joke as much below religion as it is below poetry, and as much below politics as it is below business. You will never reach its end — yes, its end! — which is to cause within us an impersonal exaltation, with petty works, in spite of all your finished execution."

"One must not always think that feeling is everything. Art is nothing without form. (12 August 1846)"

"He is so corrupt that he would willingly pay for the pleasure of selling himself."