Charles Baudelaire > Quotes

“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, Paris Spleen

“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.”
― Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays

“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas."

("The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.")”
― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

“The beautiful is always bizarre.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“Remembering is only a new form of suffering.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“Be always drunken.
Nothing else matters:
that is the only question.
If you would not feel
the horrible burden of Time
weighing on your shoulders
and crushing you to the earth,
be drunken continually.

Drunken with what?
With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.
But be drunken.

And if sometimes,
on the stairs of a palace,
or on the green side of a ditch,
or in the dreary solitude of your own room,
you should awaken
and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you,
ask of the wind,
or of the wave,
or of the star,
or of the bird,
or of the clock,
of whatever flies,
or sighs,
or rocks,
or sings,
or speaks,
ask what hour it is;
and the wind,
wave,
star,
bird,
clock will answer you:
"It is the hour to be drunken!”
― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

“If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“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

“Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.”
― 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, BAUDELAIRE - the Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays

“My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

“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.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

“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

“Extract the eternal from the ephemeral.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“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

“I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“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

“I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,
The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,
The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,
And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see
The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;
And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

“Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally; goodness is always the product of some art.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“Charles Baudelaire: Get Drunk
One should always be drunk. That's all that matters; that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing.

But what with? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose. But get drunk.

And if, at some time, on the steps of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the bleak solitude of your room, you are waking up when drunkenness has already abated, ask the wind, the wave, a star, the clock, all that which flees, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks, ask them what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: 'It is time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk, and never pause for rest! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose!'
-- Charles Baudelaire, tr. Michael Hamburger”
― Charles Baudelaire, Twenty Prose Poems

“Even when she walks one would believe that she dances.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“A multitude of small delights constitute happiness”
― Charles Baudelaire

“I have felt the wind on the wing of madness.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.”
― Charles Baudelaire, My Heart Laid Bare

“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

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

“He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.”
― Charles Baudelaire