“Conceive a canvas for a lyrical or fairytale buffoonery, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown everything in an abnormal and dreamy atmosphere, - in the atmosphere of the great days. - It must be something… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
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… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
Who would dare assign to art the sterile function of imitating nature? — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”—Charles Baudelaire “The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
“This life is a hospital in which each patient is possessed by the desire to change beds. One wants to suffer in front of… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start. — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
Our religion is itself profoundly sad - a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full liberty to… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
But the true voyagers are only those who leave Just to be leaving; hearts light, like balloons, They never turn aside from their fatality… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
Amer savoir, celui qu'on tire du voyage! Bitter is the knowledge gained in travelling. — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
“I can barely conceive a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy.” — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
The vices of man, as full of horror as one might suppose them to be, contain the proof (if in nothing else but their… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
Multitude, solitude: equal and interchangeable terms for the active and prolific poet. — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry. — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
Man loves man so much that when he flees the city, it is still to seek the crowd, that is, to rebuild the city… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
“—But why is she weeping? She, the perfect beauty, Who could put at her feet the conquered human race, What secret malady gnaws at… — Charles Baudelaire Copy Share Image
