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37 Spectacular Charles Baudelaire Quotes

Charles Baudelaire was a French poet most known for his essays. Known for his most famous work ‘Les Fleurs du mal’ (The Flowers of Evil), here is a look at the best Charles Baudelaire quotes ever documented.

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

“A sweetheart is a bottle of wine, a wife is a wine bottle.”

“All forms of beauty, like all possible phenomena, contain an element of the eternal and an element of the transitory – of the absolute and of the particular.”

“Always be a poet, even in prose.”

“Any healthy man can go without food for two days – but not without poetry.”

“Any man who does not accept the conditions of life sells his soul.”

“Dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music.”

“Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.”

“Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man’s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.”

“God is the only being who, in order to reign, doesn’t even need to exist.”

“I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old.”

“Inspiration comes of working every day.”

“It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.”

“It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.”

“It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”

“It is unfortunately very true that, without leisure and money, love can be no more than an orgy of the common man. Instead of being a sudden impulse full of ardor and reverie, it becomes a distastefully utilitarian affair.”

“Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.”

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

“Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves. They do everything in their power not to have any.”

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

“Nothing can be done except little by little.”

“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.”

“Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.”

“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.”

“Remembering is only a new form of suffering.”

“Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.”

“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 a essential part and characteristic of beauty.”

“The habit of doing one’s duty drives away fear.”

“The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.”

“The more delicate and ambitious the soul, the further do dreams estrange it from possible things.”

“The will to work must dominate, for art is long and time is brief.”

“There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.”

“There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure of them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze.”

“There is a certain cowardice, a certain weakness, rather, among respectable folk. Only brigands are convinced-of what? That they must succeed. And so they do succeed.”

“To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art – that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.”

“We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work.”

“You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it-it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.”

Here is a look at the unique work of Charles Baudelaire.

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