French poet (1821-1867)
The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being defeated.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Le Confiteor de l'artiste," Le Spleen de Paris
Twilight, how gentle you are and how tender! The rosy lights that still linger on the horizon, like the last agony of day under the conquering might of its night; the flaring candle-flames that stain with dull red the last glories of the sunset; the heavy draperies that an invisible hand draws out of the depths of the East, mimic all those complex feelings that war on one another in the heart of man at the solemn moments of life.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Evening Twilight"
It is not given to every man to take a bath of multitude: to play upon crowds is an art; and he alone can plunge, at the expense of humankind, into a debauch of vitality, to whom a fairy has bequeathed in his cradle the love of masks and disguises, the hate of home and the passion of travel.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Crowds"
What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Miss Scalpel"
Theology. What is the fall? If it is unity become duality, it is God who has fallen. In other words, is not creation the fall of God?
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
My Heart Laid Bare
And yet
to wine, to opium even, I prefer
the elixir of your lips on which love flaunts itself.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Les Fleurs du Mal
Progress, that great heresy of degenerates.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe III," L'art romantique
It might be pleasant to be alternately victim and executioner.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
My Heart Laid Bare
My head is quite literally becoming a diseased volcano. Great storms and mighty dawns.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
letter to Narcisse Ancelle, March 5, 1852
The world progresses only through misunderstanding.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
My Heart Laid Bare
There is in a word, in a verb, something sacred which forbids us from using it recklessly. To handle a language cunningly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Théophile Gautier," L'art romantique
The act of love strongly resembles torture or surgery.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Fusées
The age is mad and talks nonsense in all areas, but above all where art is concerned, because of the heretical confusion between good and beauty. Everyone who seeks the pure ideal where art is concerned is regarded as a heretic in the eyes of the Muse and of art. So I'll speak of the idealist painters as if they were ill; sometimes they reveal genius, but it is a genius that is ailing.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
letter to Alphonse de Calonne, January 8, 1859
What do I care if you are good?
Be beautiful! and be sad!
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Flowers of Evil
Do not look for my heart any more; the beasts have eaten it.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Causerie," Flowers of Evil
O night! O refreshing dark! for me you are the summons to an inner feast, you are the deliverer from anguish! In the solitude of the plains, in the stony labyrinths of a city, scintillation of stars, outburst of gaslamps, you are the fireworks of the goddess Liberty!
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Evening Twilight"
Desire of pleasure binds us to the present.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
My Heart Laid Bare
What I have always found most beautiful in the theatre, in my childhood, and still today, is lustre--a beautiful object, luminous, crystalline, complex, circular, symmetrical. However, I do not absolutely deny the value of dramatic literature. Only, I should like the actors to be mounted on high pattens, to wear masks more expressive than the human face, and to speak through megaphones.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
My Heart Laid Bare
It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
My Heart Laid Bare
Glorious empires can be founded on crime, and noble religions on imposture.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
My Heart Laid Bare