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Charles Baudelaire Quotes - Page 14

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Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of

Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness.

Charles Baudelaire
Dream, Ambition, Miracle

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
Wine, Order, Drunk
Charles Baudelaire, “Get Drunk”

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
Summer, Sweet, Air

Alas, human vices, however horrible one might imagine them to be, contain the proof (were it only in their infinite expansion) of man's longing for the infinite; but it is a longing that often takes the wrong route. It is my belief that the reason behind all culpable excesses lies in this depravation of the sense of the infinite.

Charles Baudelaire
Lying, Men, Vices
"Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire: The Conquest of Solitude".

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

Charles Baudelaire
Perfect, Would Be, Satanic
"Intimate Journals: Fusées". Book by Charles Baudelaire, 1867.

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
Mean, Doubt, Age
Charles Baudelaire (1981). “Baudelaire: Selected Writings on Art and Artists”, p.102, CUP Archive

Both ardent lovers and austere scholars, when once they come to the years of discretion, love cats, so strong and gentle, the pride of the household, who like them are sensitive to the cold, and sedentary.

Charles Baudelaire
Strong, Cat, Pride

If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely thanks to the natural support it will find in the stupidity of the multitude. It must return to its real task, which is to be the servant of the sciences and the arts, but the very humble servant, like printing and shorthand which have neither created nor supplanted literature.

Charles Baudelaire
Photography, Art, Real
1859 'Salon of 1859', section 2, in Curiosites Esthetiques (1868).

If wine disappeared from human production, I believe there would be, in the health and intellect of the planet, a void, a deficiency far more terrible than all the excesses and deviations for which wine is made responsible. Is it not reasonable to suggest that people that never drink wine, whether naive or doctrinaire, are fools or hypocrites....?

Charles Baudelaire
Believe, Wine, Hypocrite

What I say is that the supreme and singular joy of making love resides in the certainty of doing evil.

Charles Baudelaire
Love, Evil, Joy
David Paul, Charles Baudelaire (1996). “Poison and vision: poems and prose of Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Rimbaud”, Univ of Salzberg Pr

In the domain of painting and statuary, the present-day credo of the worldly wise, especially in France, is this: ... I believe that art is, and can only be, the exact reproduction of nature... An avenging God has heard the prayers of this multitude; Daguerre was his messiah.

Charles Baudelaire
Wise, Art, Prayer

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
Eye, Cities, Monsters

Il faut travailler sinon par go u" t, au moins par de sespoir, puisque, tout bien ve rifie , travailler est moins ennuyeux que s'amuser. We should work: if not by preference, at least out of despair. All things considered, work is less boring than amusement.

Charles Baudelaire
Despair, Amusement, Boring
1887 Mon coeur mis a' nu, pt.18.

I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.

Charles Baudelaire
Beauty, Monsters, Useless

A study of the Great Malady; horror of home.

Charles Baudelaire
Home, Study, Horror
Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.81, Courier Corporation

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.

Charles Baudelaire
Hands, Lines, Lasts

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.

Charles Baudelaire
Dream, Baby, Doe
Charles Baudelaire (1986). “La Fanfarlo”

J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans. IhavemorememoriesthanifIwereonethousandyearsold.

Charles Baudelaire
Souvenirs, Plus

By nature, by necessity itself, [primitive man] is encyclopedic, while civilized man finds himself confined in the infinitely small regions of specialization.

Charles Baudelaire
Knowledge, Men, Primitive Man

On the day when a young writer corrects his first proof-sheet he is as proud as a schoolboy who has just got his first dose of pox.

Charles Baudelaire
Writing, Proud, Pox
Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.85, Courier Corporation

If a given combination of trees, mountains, water, and houses, say a landscape, is beautiful, it is not so by itself, but because of me, of my favor, of the idea or feeling I attach to it.

Charles Baudelaire
Beautiful, Ideas, Water

A Dandy does nothing.

Charles Baudelaire
Doe, Dandy, Idleness
Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.74, Courier Corporation

Je sais la douleur est la noblesse unique O u' ne mordront jamais la terre et les enfers. I know that pain is the one nobility upon which Hell itself cannot encroach.

Charles Baudelaire
Pain, Unique, Hell

It is regrettable that, among the Rights of Man, the right of contradicting oneself has been forgotten.

Charles Baudelaire
Regret, Men, Rights

Hashish will be, indeed, for the impressions and familiar thoughts of the man, a mirror which magnifies, yet no more than a mirror.

Charles Baudelaire
Men, Mirrors, He Man

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