Quotes from Charles Baudelaire

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses.

A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.

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

Being a useful man has always seemed to me to be something truly hideous.

To be a great man and a saint to oneself, that's the only important thing.

Alas! Man's vices, horrible as they are supposed to be, contain the positive proof of his taste for the infinite.

By nature, by necessity itself, [primitive man] is encyclopedic, while civilized man finds himself confined in the infinitely small regions of specialization.

Nature is a temple, where the living Columns sometimes breathe confusing speech; Man walks within these groves of symbols, each Of which regards him as a kindred thing.

Music fathoms the sky.

Nature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances.

However incoherent a human existence may be, human unity is not bothered by it.

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

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

There can be no progress-real, moral prgress-except in the individual and by the individual himself.

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.

Always be a poet, even in prose.

Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

Poetry has no goal other than itself; it can have no other, and no poem will be so great, so noble, so truly worthy of the name of poem, than one written uniquely for the pleasure of writing a poem.

It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.

The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.

In this horror of solitude, this need to lose his ego in exterior flesh, which man calls grandly the need for love.

Every healthy man can do without food for two days — but without poetry, never!

Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue.