Quotations From THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

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• 1.

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

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. Trans. 1943. Mademoiselle de Maupin, preface (1834).
• 2.

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

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. Trans. by in 1943. Mademoiselle de Maupin, preface (1834).
• 3.

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

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. The Golden Fleece (La Toison d'or), ch. 3 (1839).
• 4.

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

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. Trans. by in 1943. Mademoiselle de Maupin, preface (1834).
• 5.

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

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic.
  
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• 6.

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

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. Trans. by in 1943. Mademoiselle de Maupin, preface (1834).
• 7.

  Art is beauty, the perpetual invention of detail, the choice of words, the exquisite care of execution.

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. La Revue des Deux Mondes (April 1, 1841).
  
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• 8.

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

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. La Revue des Deux Mondes (April 1, 1841).
• 9.

  Any man which an idea, however subtle and unexpected it may be, finds lacking, is not a writer. The inexpressible does not exist.

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. Quoted in Charles Baudelaire, "Théophile Gautier," part 3, L'Artiste (March 13, 1859).
• 10.

  Books follow morals, and not morals books.

  Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic. Trans. in 1943. Mademoiselle de Maupin, preface (1834).