Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion. Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.
Remy de Gourmont

Art includes everything that stimulates the desire to live.
Remy de Gourmont

Each man must grant himself the emotions that he needs and the morality that suits him.
Remy de Gourmont

If the secret of being a bore is to tell all, the secret of pleasing is to say just enough to be - not understood, but divined.
Remy de Gourmont

In order to understand life it is not only necessary not to be indifferent to men, but not to be indifferent to flocks, to trees. One should be indifferent to nothing.
Remy de Gourmont

Industry has operated against the artisan in favor of the idler, and also in favor of capital and against labor. Any mechanical invention whatsoever has been more harmful to humanity than a century of war.
Remy de Gourmont

Life is a series of sensations connected to different states of consciousness.
Remy de Gourmont

Man associates ideas not according to logic or verifiable exactitude, but according to his pleasure and interests. It is for this reason that most truths are nothing but prejudices.
Remy de Gourmont

Man has made use of his intelligence, he invented stupidity.
Remy de Gourmont

Man is the inventor of stupidity.
Remy de Gourmont

Of all the sexual aberrations, perhaps the most peculiar is chastity.
Remy de Gourmont

Simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds.
Remy de Gourmont

The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it.
Remy de Gourmont

The woman who loves always smells good.
Remy de Gourmont

Thinking is hard work. One can't bear burdens and ideas at the same time.
Remy de Gourmont

Try to put well in practice what you already know. In so doing, you will, in good time, discover the hidden things you now inquire about.
Remy de Gourmont

Two elements are needed to form a truth - a fact and an abstraction.
Remy de Gourmont

Very simple ideas lie within the reach only of complex minds.
Remy de Gourmont

We live less and less, and we learn more and more. Sensibility is surrendering to intelligence.
Remy de Gourmont

Women still remember the first kiss after men have forgotten the last.
Remy de Gourmont