Theophile Gautier Men Quotations

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.

Any man who does not have his inner world to translate is not an artist.

With all women gentleness is the most persuasive and powerful argument.

White men should exhibit the same insensibility to moral tortures that red men do to physical torments.

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.

I am a man for whom the outside world exists.

The most fitting occupation for a civilized man is to do nothing.