Quotes from Charles Baudelaire

Abolishers of the soul (materialists) are necessarily abolishers of hell, they, certainly, are interested. At all events, they are people who fear to live again--lazy people.

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.

It's the devil who pulls the strings that make us dance

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!

Each day we take another step to hell, Descending through the stench, unhorrified

That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal: from which it follows that irregularity - that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.

Acel ce-ÅŸi strânge lacom iubita-n braÅ£e pare Un muribund ce-n tain? mormântul ÅŸi-l dezmiard?.

The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it.

To be away from home and yet find oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet remain hidden from the world.

For I desire the dark, the naked, and the lone.

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.

Je ne suis pas le Styx pour t'embrasser neuf fois.

Wandering aimlessly, broken by my thoughts, Which slowly sharpened daggers at my heart

I am but little disposed to put things in writing. One almost always regrets doing so.

Isn't it true that a pleasant house makes winter more poetic, and doesn't winter add to the poetry of a house?

Go then, a starveling girl With no perfume or pearls, Only your nudity O my beauty!

Fruit free of any bruises, not yet broken open, / With flesh so firm and smooth, it cried out to be eaten!

Ant swarming City City full of dreams Where in broad day the specter tugs your sleeve

No task is a long one but the task on which one dare not start. It becomes a nightmare.

Nature is a word, an allegory, a mold, an embossing, if you will.

Or poking through a house, in closets shut for years, Full of the scent of time - acrid, musky, dank, One comes, perhaps, upon a flask of memories In whose escaping scent a soul returns to life. - The Flask

Her voice makes perfume when she speaks, Her breath is music faint and low.

I will drop into your chest like a vegetal ambrosia. I will be the grain that regenerates the cruelly plowed furrow. Poetry will be born of our intimate union. A god we shall create together, and we shall soar heavenward like sunbeams, perfumes, butterflies, birds, and all winged things.

Genius is childhood recovered at will.