Top 371 Quotes & Sayings by Charles Baudelaire - Page 2

There is no dream of love, however ideal it may be, which does not end up with a fat, greedy baby hanging from the breast.

It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.

The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries with terror before being defeated.

Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.

It would perhaps be nice to be alternately the victim and the executioner.

Anybody, providing he knows how to be amusing, has the right to talk about himself.

Who would dare assign to art the sterile function of imitating nature?

Any man who does not accept the conditions of life sells his soul.

Modernity signifies the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art of which the other half is the eternal and the immutable.

Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art.

In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.

It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.

Everything for me becomes allegory.

Progress, this great heresy of decay.

I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.

Any newspaper, from the first line to the last, is nothing but a web of horrors, I cannot understand how an innocent hand can touch a newspaper without convulsing in disgust.

The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it.

The priest is an immense being because he makes the crowd believe astonishing things.

For each letter received from a creditor, write fifty lines on an extraterrestrial subject and you will be saved.

If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.

Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction.

This life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with a desire to change his bed.

In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men.

Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.

It would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, as portrayed by Milton.

The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.

There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.

France is not poetic; she even feels, in fact, a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse, those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic.

Through the Unknown, we'll find the New

To dream magnificently is not a gift given to all men, and even for those who possess it, it runs a strong risk of being progressively diminished by the ever-growing dissipation of modern life and by the restlessness engendered by material progress. The ability to dream is a divine and mysterious ability; because it is through dreams that man communicates with the shadowy world which surrounds him. But this power needs solitude to develop freely; the more one concentrates, the more one is likely to dream fully, deeply.

A work of art should be like a well-planned crime.

A silent mouth is sweet to hear.

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it-it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?

There are some temptations which are so strong that they must be virtues.

A multitude of small delights constitute happiness

Beware of all the paradoxical in love. It is simplicity which saves, it is simplicity which brings happiness...Love should be love.

Where ever I am not is the place where I am myself.

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds, who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer. Exiled on the ground in the midst of the jeering crowd, his giant's wings keep him from walking.

There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.

The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.

What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?

Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.

Life swarms with innocent monsters.

Dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music

The world progresses only through misunderstanding.

Torture, as the art of discovering the truth, is barbaric nonsense; it is the application of a material means to a spiritual end.

Perfumes, colours and sounds echo one another.

Remembering is only a new form of suffering.

I felt passing over me the wind of the wing of madness.

There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure of them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze.

Extract the eternal from the ephemeral.

I am the wound and the knife! I am the slap and the cheek! I am the limbs and the rack, And the victim and the executioner! I am the vampire of my own heart.

I will drop into your chest like a vegetal ambrosia. I will be the grain that regenerates the cruelly plowed furrow. Poetry will be born of our intimate union. A god we shall create together, and we shall soar heavenward like sunbeams, perfumes, butterflies, birds, and all winged things.

Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

Even as a child I felt in my heart two opposite emotions: the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.

One can only forget about time by making use of it.

The People adore authority.

What is irritating about love is that it is a crime that requires an accomplice.