Charles Baudelaire Quotes

He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.

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

We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.

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

I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.

"But the true voyagers are only those who leave
Just to be leaving; hearts light, like balloons,
They never turn aside from their fatality
And without knowing why they always say: "Let's go!

You are sitting and smoking; you believe that you are sitting in your pipe, and that your pipe is smoking you; you are exhaling yourself in bluish clouds. You feel just fine in this position, and only one thing gives you worry or concern: how will you ever be able to get out of your pipe?

The insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, & which life reveals is the most living proof of our immortality.

Through the Unknown, we'll find the New

Let us beware of common folk, common sense, sentiment, inspiration, and the obvious.

To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world — impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.

And yet
to wine, to opium even, I prefer
the elixir of your lips on which love flaunts itself;
and in the wasteland of desire
your eyes afford the wells to slake my thirst.

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

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 convincing the world he is the good guy” — Ken Ammi

An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.