The arts are good and ...

The arts are good and providential in that they allow the soul to imitate the movements of love, and to feel love without its being returned - which, perhaps, is the only way of feeling it permanently.
 Marthe Bibesco

Quotes from the same author

those two wholesome defects of the French people, malice and curiosity, both of which are essential to its greatness.
 Marthe Bibesco
collections are amusing only in the making; afterwards they are like sporting prints without the sport. The sons of collectors inherit only the corpse of their fathers' satisfied passion.
 Marthe Bibesco