Charles Baudelaire

Who would dare assign to art the sterile function of imitating nature?

— Charles Baudelaire

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”—Charles Baudelaire “The second greatest trick the Devil ever…

— Charles Baudelaire

“This life is a hospital in which each patient is possessed by the desire to change beds. One wants to suffer in…

— Charles Baudelaire

There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start.

— Charles Baudelaire

Our religion is itself profoundly sad - a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full…

— Charles Baudelaire

But the true voyagers are only those who leave Just to be leaving; hearts light, like balloons, They never turn aside from…

— Charles Baudelaire

Amer savoir, celui qu'on tire du voyage! Bitter is the knowledge gained in travelling.

— Charles Baudelaire

“Car je cherche le vide, el le noir, el le nu!”

— Charles Baudelaire

“I can barely conceive a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy.”

— Charles Baudelaire

The vices of man, as full of horror as one might suppose them to be, contain the proof (if in nothing else…

— Charles Baudelaire

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

— Charles Baudelaire

Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry.

— Charles Baudelaire

Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue.

— Charles Baudelaire

Man loves man so much that when he flees the city, it is still to seek the crowd, that is, to rebuild…

— Charles Baudelaire

“—But why is she weeping? She, the perfect beauty, Who could put at her feet the conquered human race, What secret malady…

— Charles Baudelaire

Beauty is the sole ambition, the exclusive goal of Taste.

— Charles Baudelaire

The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and…

— Charles Baudelaire

“Spleen Je suis comme le roi d'un pays pluvieux, Riche, mais impuissant, jeune et pourtant très vieux, Qui, de ses précepteurs méprisant…

— Charles Baudelaire

“Conceive a canvas for a lyrical or fairytale buffoonery, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown everything in…

— Charles Baudelaire

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

— Charles Baudelaire

Modernity signifies the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art of which the other half is the eternal and the…

— Charles Baudelaire

The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.

— Charles Baudelaire

“Dis-moi, ton coeur parfois s'envole-t-il, Agathe!”

— Charles Baudelaire

We love women in proportion to their degree of strangeness to us.

— Charles Baudelaire

Blessed art Thou, Lord, who giveth suffering As a divine remedy for our impurities.

— Charles Baudelaire