Gérard de Nerval

“The only paradise is a paradise lost.”

“Our dreams are a second life.”

“The first man who compared a woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile.”

“Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.”

“How have I been able to live so long outside Nature without identifying myself with it?”

“Fanatics are picturesque, and mankind prefers observing pictures to listening to reasons.”

“I am the other.”

“Fantasy is the smoke of the soul.”

“I understood that I was not the only one to be torn between two opposing poles of life.”

“To the dreamers, I am a dream.”

“I do not ask of God to change the nature of things; I ask that He would change me.”

“Come and discover, in the serene heavens, a thousand golden thrones on a field of azure.”