Charles Baudelaire Quotes
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Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.
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Love is very similar to torture or a surgical operation. Even if the two lovers are very much in love and culminating in mutual desires, one of the two will always be fuller than the other. This one is the operator, the butcher; the other, subjected, the victim.
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Gloire et louange à toi, Satan, dans les hauteursDu Ciel, où tu régnas, et dans les profondeursde l’Enfer, où, vaincu, tu rêves en silence!Fais que mon âme un jour, sous l’Arbre de Science,Près de toi se repose, à l’heure où sur ton frontComme un Temple nouveau ses rameaux s’épandront!
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Toutes les beautés contiennent, comme tous les phénomènes possibles, quelque chose d'éternel et quelque chose de transitoire - d'absolu et de particulier.
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I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.
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Un soir, l'âme du vin chantait dans les bouteilles:'Homme, vers toi je pousse, ô cher déshérité,Sous ma prison de verre et mes cires vermeilles.'
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Modernity signifies the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art of which the other half is the eternal and the immutable.
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Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.
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Être un homme utile m'a paru toujours quelque chose de bien hideux.
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To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.
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To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.
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Ne cherchez plus mon cœur; des monstres l’ont mangé.
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If rape and poison, dagger and burning, have still not embroidered their pleasant designs on the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies, it’s because our souls, alas, are not bold enough!
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The unique and supreme voluptuousness of love lies in the certainty of committing evil. And men and women know from birth that in evil is found all sensual delight.
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Soon we shall plunge into the cold darkness; Farewell, vivid brightness of our short-lived summers!
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The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.
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J'ai toujours été étonné qu'on laissât les femmes entrer dans les églises. Quelle conversation peuvent-elles avoir avec Dieu?
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Ces beaux et grands navires, imperceptiblement balancés (dandinés) sur les eaux tranquilles, ces robustes navires, à l'air désœuvré et nostalgique, ne nous disent-ils pas dans une langue muette : Quand partons-nous pour le bonheur?
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There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.
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Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, which make up one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immutable. This transitory fugitive element, which is constantly changing, must not be despised or neglected.
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If rape, poison, daggers, arsonHave not yet embroidered with their pleasing designsThe banal canvas of our pitiable lives,It is because our souls have not enough boldness.
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Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.
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What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.
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There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.