Charles Baudelaire Quotes

Always be a poet, even in prose.

If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist.

Inspiration comes of working every day.

He possessed the logic of all good intentions and a knowledge of all the tricks of his trade, and yet he never succeeded at anything, because he believed too much in the impossible. Surprising? Why so? He was forever in the act of conceiving it!

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.

The beautiful is always bizarre.

Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?

What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.

And, drunk with my own madness, I shouted at him furiously, "Make life beautiful! Make life beautiful!

L'étude du beau est un duel où l'artiste crie de frayeur avant d'être vaincu.

My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed,

Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.

On peut chercher dans Dieu le complice et l'ami qui manquent toujours. Dieu est l'éternel confident dans cette tragédie dont chacun est le héros.

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters...But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

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

Il était tard; ainsi qu'une médaille neuve
La pleine lune s'étalait,
Et la solennité de la nuit, comme un fleuve
Sur Paris dormant ruisselait.

If rape or arson, poison or the knife
Has wove no pleasing patterns in the stuff
Of this drab canvas we accept as life -
It is because we are not bold enough!

- Hypocrite lecteur, - mon semblable, - mon frère!

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

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

Flesh is willing, but the Soul requires
Sisyphean patience for its song,
Time, Hippocrates remarked, is short
and Art is long.