We have set our hearts so completely on becoming worldly-wise, we have overstrained our microscopes to such an extent for the purpose of examining the ghastly protuberances and shameful blemishes with which we are covered and which we joyfully cultivate, that it is not possible for us to speak the language of common men. They live to live and we, alas, we live to understand.

— Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire Quotes

I’m the vampire of my own heart – One of those utter derelicts Condemned to eternal laughter, But who can no longer smile!

— Charles Baudelaire

Patent symbols, perfect picture Of an irremediable fate Which makes one think that the Devil Always does well whatever he does!

— Charles Baudelaire

A hellish, ironic beacon, Torch of satanical blessings, Sole glory and only solace – The consciousness of doing evil.

— Charles Baudelaire

Her Hair O tumble to the collarbone, O fleece, O locks, O fragrance full of “I don’t care,” what ecstasy! To stuff a gloomy place with all I know is rife within this mass, I’ll shake it like a kerchief in the air.

— Charles Baudelaire

Impassive clock! Terrifying, sinister god, Whose finger threatens us and says: “Remember!

— Charles Baudelaire

A Conversation.

— Charles Baudelaire

They have the divine eyes of little girls Who are amazed and laugh at everything that gleams.

— Charles Baudelaire

In love with pleasure to the point of cruelty, See! I drag along also! but, more dazed than they, I say: “What do they seek in Heaven, all those blind?

— Charles Baudelaire

O Beauty! dost thou generate from Heaven or from Hell? Within thy glance, so diabolic and divine, Confusedly both wickedness and goodness dwell, And hence one might compare thee unto sparkling wine.

— Charles Baudelaire

Il est plus difficile d’aimer Dieu que de croire en lui.

— Charles Baudelaire

The Alchemy of Grief.

— Charles Baudelaire

Dear, you evoke white-veiled and lukewarm hours.

— Charles Baudelaire

Babel of stairways and arcades, it was an endless palace, full of reservoirs and cascades falling into a dull and darkened gold; and heavy cataracts, like crystal curtains, hung, in shimmering light, on metal walls.

— Charles Baudelaire

In all climes, under every sun, Death admires you At your antics, ridiculous Humanity, And frequently, like you, scenting herself with myrrh, Mingles her irony with your insanity!

— Charles Baudelaire

In the evening streamed down the radiant sun, That great eye which stares from the inquisitive sky. From behind the window that scattered its bright rays It seemed to gaze upon our long, quiet dinners, Spreading wide its candle-like reflections On the frugal table-cloth and the serge curtains.

— Charles Baudelaire

This morning I was so rash as to read some of the public newspapers; suddenly an indolence of the weight of twenty atmospheres fell upon me, and I was stopped, faced by the appalling uselessness of explaining anything whatever to anyone whatever. Those who know can divine me, and for those who can not or will not understand, it would be fruitless to pile up explanations.

— Charles Baudelaire

In preferring the Baudelaire translations of Poe to the original – and they give the impression of being original works – Stedman agreed with Asselineau that the French is more concise than the English.

— Charles Baudelaire

We have set our hearts so completely on becoming worldly-wise, we have overstrained our microscopes to such an extent for the purpose of examining the ghastly protuberances and shameful blemishes with which we are covered and which we joyfully cultivate, that it is not possible for us to speak the language of common men. They live to live and we, alas, we live to understand.

— Charles Baudelaire

The names of Diderot and Baudelaire were coupled. Neither academic nor spouting the jargon of the usual critic, the Salons of Baudelaire are the production of a humanist.

— Charles Baudelaire

It was easy for Nietzsche to praise Wagner in Germany in 1876, but dangerous at Paris in 1861 to declare war on Wagner’s adverse critics. This Baudelaire did.

— Charles Baudelaire
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