Quotes from Charles Baudelaire

The one vice beyond redemption is to do bad things out of stupidity.

Ô douleur! ô douleur! Le Temps mange la vie, Et l'obscur Ennemi qui nous range le coeur Du sang que nous perdons croît et se fortifie!

Angel full of gaiety, do you know anguish?   Angel

I prefer to African wines, to opium, to burgundy, The elixir of your mouth where love parades itself; When my desires leave in caravan for you, Your eyes are the reservoir where my cares drink. — Charles Baudelaire, from "Sed Non Satiata," Fleurs du mal / Flowers of Evil . Translated by Geoffrey Wagner. (David R. Godine; First edition, second printing edition October 1, 1985) Originally published 1857.

Samuel was, more than all the others, the man of failed works of beauty; – a fantastical and sickly creature, whose poetry shines forth much more in his person than in his works, and who, around one o'clock in the morning, between the dazzling of a coal fire and the clock's tick-tock, always seemed to be the god of impotence, – a modern and hermaphrodite god, – so colossal an impotence, so enormous, reaching epic proportions!

Think of my kind old nurse you once were jealous of . . .

Beauty, you walk on corpses, mocking them;

as I walked through the modern Carrousel.° The old Paris is gone. A town's complexion, like human hearts, never stays put at all.

Oh, sim! O Tempo está de volta; O Tempo reina como um rei agora; e junto dele aquele velho homem com seu arsenal demoníaco de Memórias, Arrependimentos, Espasmos, Medos, Ansiedades, Pesadelos, Raivas, e Neuroses. Eu lhe asseguro que os segundos são mais fortes agora, solenemente acentuados, e cada um, saltando do relógio, diz assim, Eu sou a Vida, intolerável, implacável!

I sing of calamitous dogs, those that wander among the winding ravines of great cities, or those whose sparkling, winning eyes have asked some misfit: Take me with you, and our combined wretchedness might make some sort of happiness!

She is unaware of Hell and Purgatory And when the time comes for her to enter The black Night, she will look into the face of Death As a new-born child,—without hatred or remorse.

Habría que añadir dos derechos a la lista de derechos del hombre: El derecho al desorden y el derecho a marcharse.

Whose thoughts, like larks, rise on the freshening breeze, Who fans the morning with his tameless wings, Skims over life, and understands with ease The speech of flowers and other voiceless things.

L'idée que l'homme se fait du beau s'imprime dans tout son ajustement, chiffonne ou roidit son habit, arrondit ou aligne son geste, et même pénètre subtilement, à la longue, les traits de son visage. L'homme finit par ressembler à ce qu'il voudrait être.

Car je cherche le vide, el le noir, el le nu!

Atatea juvaeruri sunt Uitate-n bezna si-n pamant, Dormind in veci necercetate; Atatea flori dau in zadar Parfumul lor subtil si rar In taina si-n singuratate.

Nature can counsel nothing but crime.

Our close reunion will create poetry. Between us we shall make a god.

My soul's a tomb which, wicked cenobite, I wander in for all eternity; Nothing embellishes these odious walls.

Una noche, el alma del vino cantó en las botellas: ¡Hombre, hacia ti elevo, ¡oh! querido desheredado, Bajo mi prisión de vidrio y mis lacres bermejos, Una canción colmada de luz y de fraternidad!

My cat seeking a bed on the tiled floor Shakes his thin, mangy body ceaselessly; The soul of an old poet wanders in the rain-pipe With the sad voice of a shivering ghost.

Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique, Défilent lentement dans mon âme ; l'Espoir, Vaincu, pleure, et l'Angoisse atroce, despotique, Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir.

Ah! ¡no haber parido todo un nudo de víboras, Antes que amamantar esta irrisión! ¡Maldita sea la noche de placeres efímeros En que mi vientre concibió mi expiación!

oh Lesbos, donde los besos lánguidos o alegres, ardientes como soles, frescos como sandías, son adorno de noches y días de gloria