Charles Baudelaire Quotes

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 soothing, - even serene in its passion. - Regions of pure Poetry.

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Hay que ser sublime sin interrupción

All dark, all bloody, my heart,

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

How convenient it is to declare that everything is totally ugly within the habit of the époque, rather than applying oneself to extract from it the dark and cryptic beauty, however faint and invisible it is.

"E se talvolta, sui gradini di un palazzo,
sull’erba verde di un fosso, nella tetra solitudine della vostra stanza, vi risvegliate perché l’ebbrezza è diminuita o scomparsa, chiedete al vento, alle stelle, agli uccelli,
all'orologio, a tutto ciò che fugge,
a tutto ciò che geme, a tutto ciò che scorre, a tutto ciò che canta,
a tutto ciò che parla, chiedete che ora è; e il vento, le onde, le stelle, gli uccelli, l'orologio, vi risponderanno:
"E' ora di ubriacarsi!
Per non essere gli schiavi martirizzati del Tempo, ubriacatevi, ubriacatevi sempre!
Di vino, di poesia o di virtù , come vi pare

— But why is she weeping? She, the perfect beauty, Who could put at her feet the conquered human race, What secret malady gnaws at those sturdy flanks? — She is weeping, fool, because she has lived! And because she lives! But what she deplores Most, what makes her shudder down to her knees, Is that tomorrow, alas! she will still have to live! Tomorrow, after tomorrow, always! — like us!

Our mortal eyes, however bright, are only darkened melancholy mirrors.

He is at once a great lazybones, pitifully ambitious, and famous for unhappiness; for his entire life he has had practically nothing but half-baked ideas. The sun of laziness, which ceaselessly glows within him, vaporizes him and gnaws away that half-genius that heaven bestowed upon him.

The Revolution had been made by voluptuaries.

La Révolution a été faite par des voluptueux.

All great poets become naturally, fatally, critics.

Tous les grands poètes deviennent naturellement, fatalement, critiques.

There is in the word, in the logos, something sacred which forbids us to gamble with it. To handle a language skilfuly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.