Authors:

Charles Baudelaire Quotes - Page 6

All Quotes Ambition Art Atmosphere Autumn Beauty Childhood Children Church Dance Dancing Desire Devil Earth Effort Evil Fashion Feelings Funny Genius Giving Happiness Hate Heart Hell History Home Horror Idleness Imagination Inspiration Inspirational Joy Language Life Literature Love Lying Madness Memories Moon Morning Nature Pain Passion Photography Pleasure Poetry Pride Progress Quality Reality Running Sin Sleep Solitude Soul Spring Study Stupidity Suffering Summer Terror Time Torture Universe Virtue War Water Wine Winter Work Writing
There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise

There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise what they call professions.

Charles Baudelaire
Warrior, Three, May
Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.75, Courier Corporation

What is art? Prostitution.

Charles Baudelaire
Sarcastic, Art, Prostitution
Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.31, Courier Corporation

It is the greatest art of the devil to convince us he does not exist.

Charles Baudelaire
Art, Convince Us, Evil

The true voyagers are those who go for the sake of traveling . . . and without quite knowing why, they say, 'Let us depart!'.

Charles Baudelaire
Knowing, Sake

Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue.

Charles Baudelaire
Wine, Drink, Virtue

Multitude, solitude: equal and interchangeable terms for the active and prolific poet.

Charles Baudelaire
Solitude, Crowds, Poet

It is unfortunately very true that, without leisure and money, love can be no more than an orgy of the common man. Instead of being a sudden impulse full of ardor and reverie, it becomes a distastefully utilitarian affair.

Charles Baudelaire
Love, Men, Leisure

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

Charles Baudelaire
Artist, History, Dueling
"Poison and vision: poems and prose of Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Rimbaud".

A man who drinks only water has a secret to hide from his fellow men.

Charles Baudelaire
Men, Water, Secret
Charles Baudelaire (1971). “Artificial Paradise: On Hashish and Wine as Means of Expanding Individuality”

Finer than any sand are dusts of gold that gleam, Vague starpoints, in the mystic iris of their eyes.

Charles Baudelaire
Cat, Eye, Dust
Charles Baudelaire (1991). “The Flowers of Evil and Paris Spleen: Poems”, Boa Editions

Strangeness is an ingredient necessary in beauty.

Charles Baudelaire
Ingredients, Strangeness

To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.

Charles Baudelaire
Practice, Sorcery, Language
"L'art Romantique". Book by Charles Baudelaire, 1869.

It is at once by way of poetry and through poetry, as with music, that the soul glimpses splendors from beyond the tomb; and when an exquisite poem brings one's eyes to the point of tears, those tears are not evidence of an excess of joy, they are witness far more to an exacerbated melancholy, a disposition of the nerves, a nature exiled among imperfect things, which would like to possess, without delay, a paradise revealed on this very same earth.

Charles Baudelaire
Eye, Imperfect Things, Poetry
"L'art romantique". Book by Charles Baudelaire, 1869.

We revel in the laxness of the path we take.

Charles Baudelaire
Path

True Civilization does not lie in gas, nor in steam, nor in turn-tables. It lies in the reduction of the traces of original sin.

Charles Baudelaire
Lying, Civilization, Doe

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

Charles Baudelaire
Rivers, Yellow, Blue

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

Charles Baudelaire
Wine, Drunk, Virtue

Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference. Gesture, grimace, clothing, decor even - all must combine to realize a character.

Charles Baudelaire
Character, Portraits, Portraiture
Charles Baudelaire, Jonathan Mayne (1981). “Art in Paris 1845-1862: salons and other exhibitions”

Quand notre coeur a fait une fois sa vendange, Vivre est un mal. Once our heart has been harvested once, Life becomes miserable.

Charles Baudelaire
Heart, Miserable, Has Beens

It is at despair at not being able to be noble and beautiful by natural means that we have made up our faces so strangely.

Charles Baudelaire
Beautiful, Mean, Despair
Charles Baudelaire (1986). “La Fanfarlo”

Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.

Charles Baudelaire
Dream, Reality, Common Sense

Comme l'imagination a cre e le monde, elle le gouverne. Because imagination created the world, it governs it.

Charles Baudelaire
Imagination, World

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

Charles Baudelaire
Nature, Self, Voice
Charles Baudelaire (1992). “Selected Writings on Art and Literature”, Penguin Classics

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

Charles Baudelaire
Despair, Boring, Amusing

Thanks be to God, Who gives us sufferingas sacred remedy for all our sins,that best and purest essence which preparesthe strong in spirit for divine delights!

Charles Baudelaire
Strong, Essence, Giving

You May Also Like: