Charles Baudelaire Quotes

Cette vie est un hôpital où chaque malade est possédé du désir de changer de lit.

I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge.

Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves.

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

I know that pain is the one nobility / upon which Hell itself cannot encroach

Abolishers of the soul (materialists) are necessarily abolishers of hell, they, certainly, are interested. At all events, they are people who fear to live again — lazy people.

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

The soul is a thing so impalpable, so often useless and sometimes so embarrassing that I suffered, upon losing it, a little less emotion than if I had mislaid, while out on a stroll, my calling-card.

and over your unconsecrated head
you'll hear the howling wolves
lament their fate and yours the livelong year;

The phrase "a literature of decadence" implies a scale of literature: infancy, childhood, adolescence, etc. This term, I would say, supposes something fateful and providential, like an inescapable decree; and it is completely unjust to reproach us for the fulfillment of a law that is mysterious. All I can understand of this academic saying is that it is shameful to obey this law pleasurably, and that we are guilty of rejoicing in our destiny.

Je ne conçois guère (mon cerveau serait-il un miroir ensorcelé?) un type de Beauté où il n'y ait du Malheur. Appuyé sur — d'autres diraient: obsédé par — ces idées, on conçoit qu'il me serait difficile de en pas conclure que le plus parfait type de Beauté virile est Satan, — à la manière de Milton.

شعور بالوحدة ، منذ مولدي. برغم الأسرة ، ووسط الزملاء، على وجه الخصوص ، - شعور المقدر له ان يكون وحيدا إلى الابد.
مع ذلك، نزوع شديد الحيوية للحياة والمتعة

One night, the soul of wine was singing in the flask:
"O man, dear disinherited! to you I sing
This song full of light and of brotherhood
From my prison of glass with its scarlet wax seals."

C'est par le malentendu universel que tout le monde s'accorde. Car si, par malheur, on se comprenait, on ne pourrait jamais s'accorder.

I walk alone, absorbed in my fantastic play, — Fencing with rhymes, which, parrying nimbly, back away;
Tripping on words, as on rough paving in the street,
Or bumping into verses I long had dreamed to meet.