"Always be a poet, even in prose."
— Charles Baudelaire

"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."
— Charles Baudelaire

"The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he did not exist."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Remembering is only a new form of suffering."
— Charles Baudelaire

"I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust."
— Charles Baudelaire

"I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination."
— Charles Baudelaire

"I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror."
— Charles Baudelaire

"you walk on corpses, Beauty, undismayed,"
— Charles Baudelaire

"La, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté
Luxe, calme et volupté
There, there is nothing else but grace and measure,
Richness, quietness, and pleasure."
— Charles Baudelaire

"THE OWLS

by: Charles Baudelaire

UNDER the overhanging yews,
The dark owls sit in solemn state,
Like stranger gods; by twos and twos
Their red eyes gleam. They meditate.

Motionless thus they sit and dream
Until that melancholy hour
When, with the sun's last fading gleam,
The nightly shades assume their power.

From their still attitude the wise
Will learn with terror to despise
All tumult, movement, and unrest;

For he who follows every shade,
Carries the memory in his breast,
Of each unhappy journey made.
'The Owls' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919."
— Charles Baudelaire

"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."
— Charles Baudelaire (The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays)

"My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed,

Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases."
— Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs Du Mal)

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

"You are sitting and smoking; you believe that you are sitting in your pipe, and that your pipe is smoking you; you are exhaling yourself in bluish clouds. You feel just fine in this position, and only one thing gives you worry or concern: how will you ever be able to get out of your pipe?"
— Charles Baudelaire (Artificial Paradises: Baudelaire's Masterpiece on Hashish)

"Hypocrite reader -- my fellow -- my brother!"
— Charles Baudelaire

"Ma jeunesse ne fut qu'un ténébreux orage, Traversé çà et là par de brillants de soleils; Le tonnerre et la pluie ont fait un tel ravage, Qu'il reste en mon jardin bien peu de fruits vermeils."
— Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs Du Mal)

"The insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, & which life reveals is the most living proof of our immortality."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Dieu est le seul être qui, pour règner, n'a même pas besoin d'exister."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Forest, I fear you! In my ruined heart your roaring wakens the same agony as in cathedrals when the organ moans and from the depths I hear that I am damned."
— Charles Baudelaire

"The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance;
We find delight in the most loathsome things;
Some furtherance of Hell each new day brings,
And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance."
— Charles Baudelaire

"L'étude du beau est un duel où l'artiste crie de frayeur avant d'être vaincu."
— Charles Baudelaire (Petits Poèmes en prose :)

"Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe? / Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du NOUVEAU! (rough translation : Into the abyss -- Heaven or Hell, what difference does it make? / To the depths of the Unknown to find the NEW!)"
— Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs Du Mal)

"The immense appetite we have for biography comes from a deep-seated sense of equality."
— Charles Baudelaire

"In our corruption we perceive beauties unrevealed to ancient times."
— Charles Baudelaire

"In order not to feel time's horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, get drunk and stay that way. On what? On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk!"
— Charles Baudelaire

"All which is beautiful and noble is the result of reason and calculation."
— Charles Baudelaire

"de satan ou de dieu, qu'importe! ange ou sirène,
qu'importe, si tu rends -- fée aux yeux de velours,
rythme, parfum, lueur, ô mon unique reine! --
l'univers moins hideux et les instants moins lourds?"
— Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs Du Mal)

"He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window."
— Charles Baudelaire

"The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds
Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;
But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
He cannot walk, his wings are in the way."
— Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs Du Mal)

"What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Doubt, or the absence of faith and naivete, is a vice peculiar to this age, for no one is obedient nowadays; and naivete, which means the dominance of temperament in the manner, is a gift from God, possessed by very few."
— Charles Baudelaire (The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays)

"It is the hour to be drunken! To escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish."
— Charles Baudelaire

"We revel in the laxness of the path we take."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Le serpent qui danse

Que j'aime voir, chère indolente,
De ton corps si beau,
Comme une étoffe vacillante,
Miroiter la peau!

Sur ta chevelure profonde
Aux acres parfums,
Mer odorante et vagabonde
Aux flots bleus et bruns,

Comme un navire qui s'éveille
Au vent du matin,
Mon âme rêveuse appareille
Pour un ciel lointain.

Tes yeux où rien ne se révèle
De doux ni d'amer,
Sont deux bijoux froids où se mêlent
L’or avec le fer.

A te voir marcher en cadence,
Belle d'abandon,
On dirait un serpent qui danse
Au bout d'un bâton.

Sous le fardeau de ta paresse
Ta tête d'enfant
Se balance avec la mollesse
D’un jeune éléphant,

Et ton corps se penche et s'allonge
Comme un fin vaisseau
Qui roule bord sur bord et plonge
Ses vergues dans l'eau.

Comme un flot grossi par la fonte
Des glaciers grondants,
Quand l'eau de ta bouche remonte
Au bord de tes dents,

Je crois boire un vin de bohême,
Amer et vainqueur,
Un ciel liquide qui parsème
D’étoiles mon coeur!"
— Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs du Mal)

"Zazdrościłem grającym żądzy pełnej grzechu,
Bezzębnym zalotnicom fałszywego śmiechu,
A wszystkim spokojności , z jaką kupców wzorem
Frymarczyli urodą, sercem i honorem"
— Charles Baudelaire

"L'orage rajeunit les fleurs"
— Charles Baudelaire (Les Fleurs Du Mal)

"On peut chercher dans Dieu le complice et l'ami qui manquent toujours. Dieu est l'éternel confident dans cette tragédie dont chacun est le héros."
— Charles Baudelaire (Intimate Journals)

"Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry."
— Charles Baudelaire (Intimate Journals)

"What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?"
— Charles Baudelaire (Paris Spleen)

"the insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, and which life reveals, is the most living proof of our immortality."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Toutes les beautés contiennent, comme tous les phénomènes possibles, quelque chose d'éternel et quelque chose de transitoire — d'absolu et de particulier."
— Charles Baudelaire

"La Terre est un gâteau plein de douceur."
— Charles Baudelaire (Les fleurs du mal)

"A może będziesz grzała swe ciało liliowe
przy księżyca promieniach;zaś gdy głód złowrogi
zajrzy, czy z pusta kiesą na gwiaździste drogi
zbierać złoto podążysz w strefy lazurowe?"
— Charles Baudelaire

"Rzucę ten świat bez żalu, bom zawsze go winił
za to, że czyn marzeniu braterstwa zaprzecza
Obym mógł użyć miecza i zginąć od miecza
Piotr zaparł się Jezusa, i dobrze uczynił"
— Charles Baudelaire

"Oh, Creator! Can monsters exist in the sight of him who alone knows how they were invented, how they invented themselves, and how they might not have invented themselves?"
— Charles Baudelaire

"L'etude de beau est un duel ou l'artiste crie de frayeur avant d'etre vaincu."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Inspiration comes of working every day."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Ascend beyond the sickly atmosphere
to a higher plane, and purify yourself
by drinking as if it were ambrosia
the fire that fills and fuels Emptiness.

Free from the futile strivings and the cares
which dim existence to a realm of mist,
happy is he who wings an upward way
on mighty pinions to the fields of light;

whose thoughts like larks spontaneously rise
into the morning sky; whose flight, unchecked,
outreaches life and readily comprehends
the language of flowers and of all mute things."
— Charles Baudelaire

"Nature is a temple, where the living
Columns sometimes breathe confusing speech;
Man walks within these groves of symbols, each
Of which regards him as a kindred thing."
— Charles Baudelaire

"These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking.... Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his mind."
— Charles Baudelaire