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Do You Remember The Sight We Saw, My Soul, That Soft Summer Morning Round A Turning In The Path, The Disgusting Carcass On A Bed Scattered With Stones, Its Legs In The Air Like A Woman In Need Burning Its Wedding Poisons Like A Fountain With Its Rhythmic Sobs, I Could Hear It Clearly Flowing With A Long Murmuring Sound, But I Touch My Body In Vain To Find The Wound. I Am The Vampire Of My Own Heart, One Of The Great Outcasts Condemned To Eternal Laughter Who Can No Longer Smile. Am I Dead? I Must Be Dead.

-Charles Baudelaire

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Do You Remember The

Charles Baudelaire

...

Do You Remember The Sight We Saw, My Soul, That Soft Summer Morning Round A Turning In The Path, The Disgusting Carcass On A Bed Scattered With Stones, Its Legs In The Air Like A Woman In Need Burning Its Wedding Poisons Like A Fountain With Its Rhythmic Sobs, I Could Hear It Clearly Flowing With A Long Murmuring Sound, But I Touch My Body In Vain To Find The Wound. I Am The Vampire Of My Own Heart, One Of The Great Outcasts Condemned To Eternal Laughter Who Can No Longer Smile. Am I Dead? I Must Be Dead.

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Drowsing, They Take The Noble Attitude Of A Great Sphinx, Who, In A Desert Land, Sleeps Always, Dreaming Dreams That Have No End.

Where One Should See Only What Is Beautiful, Our Public Looks Only For What Is True.

Good Sense Tells Us That Earthly Things Are Rare And Fleeting, And That True Reality Exists Only In Dreams. To Draw Sustenance From Happiness- Natural Or Artificial - You Must First Have The Courage To Swallow It; And Those Who Perhaps Most Merit Happiness Are Precisely Those On Whom Felicity, As Mortals Conceive It, Always Acts As A Vomitive.

I Sit In The Sky Like A Sphinx Misunderstood; My Heart Of Snow Is Wed To The Whiteness Of Swans; I Hate The Movement That Displaces The Rigid Lines, With Lips Untaught Neither Tears Nor Laughter Do I Know.

To Be Just, That Is To Say, To Justify Its Existence, Criticism Should Be Partial, Passionate And Political, That Is To Say, Written From An Exclusive Point Of View, But A Point Of View That Opens Up The Widest Horizons.

If A Given Combination Of Trees, Mountains, Water, And Houses, Say A Landscape, Is Beautiful, It Is Not So By Itself, But Because Of Me, Of My Favor, Of The Idea Or Feeling I Attach To It.

In Order Not To Feel Time's Horrid Fardel Bruise Your Shoulders, Grinding You Into The Earth, Get Drunk And Stay That Way. On What? On Wine, Poetry, Virtue, Whatever. But Get Drunk!

The Poet Is A Kinsman In The Clouds Who Scoffs At Archers, Loves A Stormy Day; But On The Ground, Among The Hooting Crowds, He Cannot Walk, His Wings Are In The Way.

A Multitude Of Small Delights Constitute Happiness

Today I Had A Strange Warning. I Felt The Wind Of Insanity Brush My Mind.

However Incoherent A Human Existence May Be, Human Unity Is Not Bothered By It.

The More A Man Cultivates The Arts The Less He Fornicates. A More And More Apparent Cleavage Occurs Between The Spirit And The Brute.

A Book Is A Garden, A Party, A Company By The Way.

Je Sais La Douleur Est La Noblesse Unique O U' Ne Mordront Jamais La Terre Et Les Enfers. I Know That Pain Is The One Nobility Upon Which Hell Itself Cannot Encroach.

It Is This Admirable And Immortal Instinct For Beauty Which Causes Us To Regard The Earth And Its Spectacles As A Glimpse, A Correspondence Of The Beyond.

Ascend Beyond The Sickly Atmosphere To A Higher Plane, And Purify Yourself By Drinking As If It Were Ambrosia The Fire That Fills And Fuels Emptiness. Free From The Futile Strivings And The Cares Which Dim Existence To A Realm Of Mist, Happy Is He Who Wings An Upward Way On Mighty Pinions To The Fields Of Light; Whose Thoughts Like Larks Spontaneously Rise Into The Morning Sky; Whose Flight, Unchecked, Outreaches Life And Readily Comprehends The Language Of Flowers And Of All Mute Things.

The World Only Goes Round By Misunderstanding.

Art Is An Infinitely Precious Good, A Draught Both Refreshing And Cheering Which Restores The Stomach And The Mind To The Natural Equilibrium Of The Ideal.

I Throw Fresh Seeds Out. Who Knows What Survives?

Any Man Who Does Not Accept The Conditions Of Life Sells His Soul.

One Must Work, If Not From Inclination, At Least Out Of Despair — Since It Proves, On Close Examination, That Work Is Less Boring Than Amusing Oneself.

There Is No Such Thing As A Long Piece Of Work, Except One That You Dare Not Start.

Alas, Human Vices, However Horrible One Might Imagine Them To Be, Contain The Proof (were It Only In Their Infinite Expansion) Of Man's Longing For The Infinite; But It Is A Longing That Often Takes The Wrong Route. It Is My Belief That The Reason Behind All Culpable Excesses Lies In This Depravation Of The Sense Of The Infinite.

Man Loves Man So Much That When He Flees The City, It Is Still To Seek The Crowd, That Is, To Rebuild The City In The Country.

That In All Times, Mediocrity Has Dominated, That Is Indubitable; But That It Reigns More Than Ever, That It Is Becoming Absolutely Triumphant And Inhibiting, This Is What Is As True As It Is Distressing.

Genius Is Nothing More Nor Less Than Childhood Recaptured At Will.

The Devil's Finest Trick Is To Persuade You That He Does Not Exist.

I Love The Clouds... The Clouds That Pass By... Over There... Over There... Those Lovely Clouds!

I Have To Confess That I Had Gambled On My Soul And Lost It With Heroic Insouciance And Lightness Of Touch. The Soul Is So Impalpable, So Often Useless, And Sometimes Such A Nuisance, That I Felt No More Emotion On Losing It Than If, On A Stroll, I Had Mislaid My Visiting Card.

Alas! Man's Vices, Horrible As They Are Supposed To Be, Contain The Positive Proof Of His Taste For The Infinite.

But A Dandy Can Never Be A Vulgar Man

A Frenzied Passion For Art Is A Canker That Devours Everything Else.

A Precious Liquid, A Poison Dearer Than That Of The Borgias - Because It Is Made From Our Blood, Our Health, Our Sleep, And Two-thirds Of Our Love - We Must Be Stingy With It.

Two Fundamental Literary Qualities: Supernaturalism And Irony.

It Is Easy To Understand Why The Rabble Dislike Cats. A Cat Is Beautiful; It Suggests Ideas Of Luxury, Cleanliness, Voluptuous Pleasures.

...an Industry Which Can Furnish Results Identical To Nature Must Be The Absolute In Art.

I Have Cultivated My Hysteria With Pleasure And Terror.

Certes, Je Sortirai Quant A' Moi Satisfait D'un Monde O U' L'action N'est Pas La Soeur Du Re" Ve. Indeed, For My Part, I Shall Be Happy To Leave A World Where Action Is Not Sister To The Dream.

Nature Is A Word, An Allegory, A Mold, An Embossing, If You Will.

The Dance Can Reveal Everything Mysterious That Is Hidden In Music, And It Has The Additional Merit Of Being Human And Palpable. Dancing Is Poetry With Arms And Legs.

If The Word Doesn't Exist, Invent It; But First Be Sure It Doesn't Exist.

In This Horror Of Solitude, This Need To Lose His Ego In Exterior Flesh, Which Man Calls Grandly The Need For Love.

Discover Day To Day Excitement.

The Act Of Love Strongly Resembles Torture Or Surgery.

All Fashions Are Charming, Or Rather Relatively Charming, Each One Being A New Striving, More Or Less Well Conceived, After Beauty, An Approximate Statement Of An Ideal, The Desire For Which Constantly Teases The Unsatisfied Human Mind.

Always Be A Poet, Even In Prose.

My Soul Travels On The Smell Of Perfume Like The Souls Of Other Men On Music.

My Dear Brothers, Never Forget, When You Hear The Progress Of Enlightenment Vaunted, That The Devil's Best Trick Is To Persuade You That He Doesn't Exist!

Every Healthy Man Can Do Without Food For Two Days — But Without Poetry, Never!

Soon We Will Plunge Ourselves Into Cold Shadows, And All Of Summer's Stunning Afternoons Will Be Gone. I Already Hear The Dead Thuds Of Logs Below Falling On The Cobblestones And The Lawn.

Love Is A Taste For Prostitution. In Fact, There Is No Noble Pleasure That Cannot Be Reduced To Prostitution.

I Am A Cemetery Abhorred By The Moon, In Which Long Worms Crawl Like Remorse.

Nothing In A Portrait Is A Matter Of Indifference. Gesture, Grimace, Clothing, Decor Even - All Must Combine To Realize A Character.

To Handle A Language Skillfully Is To Practice A Kind Of Evocative Sorcery.

As For Techniques And Processes, As Seen In The Works Themselves, Neither Public Nor Artists Will Find Anything About Them Here. Those Things Are Learned In The Studio And The Public Is Interested Only In The Results.

Common Sense Tells Us That The Things Of The Earth Exist Only A Little, And That True Reality Is Only In Dreams.

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What Do I Care If You Are Good? Be Beautiful! And Be Sad!

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.

The Unique And Supreme Voluptuousness Of Love Lies In The Certainty Of Committing Evil. And Men And Women Know From Birth That In Evil Is Found All Sensual Delight.

The Vices Of Man, As Full Of Horror As One Might Suppose Them To Be, Contain The Proof (if In Nothing Else But Their Infinitely Expandable Nature) Of His Taste For The Infinite; Only, It Is A Taste That Often Takes A Wrong Turn.

Relate Comic Things In Pompous Fashion. Irregularity, In Other Words The Unexpected, The Surprising, The Astonishing, Are Essential To And Characteristic Of Beauty. Two Fundamental Literary Qualities: Supernaturalism And Irony. The Blend Of The Grotesque And The Tragic Are Attractive To The Mind, As Is Discord To Blasé Ears. Imagine A Canvas For A Lyrical, Magical Farce, For A Pantomime, And Translate It Into A Serious Novel. Drown The Whole Thing In An Abnormal, Dreamy Atmosphere, In The Atmosphere Of Great Days … The Region Of Pure Poetry.

Life Is A Hospital In Which Every Patient Is Possessed By A Desire To Change His Bed.

Since Photography Gives Us Every Guarantee Of Exactitude That We Could Desire (they Really Believe That, The Mad Fools !), Then Photography And Art Are The Same Thing.

Be Always Drunken. Nothing Else Matters: That Is The Only Question. If You Would Not Feel The Horrible Burden Of Time Weighing On Your Shoulders And Crushing You To The Earth, Be Drunken Continually.

Unable To Do Away With Love, The Church Found A Way To Decontaminate It By Creating Marriage.

Even If It Were Proven That God Didn't Exist, Religion Would Still Be Saintly And Divine.

The Devil's Hand Directs Our Every Move - / The Things We Loathed Become The Things We Love

Here Comes The Time When, Vibrating On Its Stem, Every Flower Fumes Like A Censer; Noises And Perfumes Circle In The Evening Air.

On The Vaporization And The Centralization Of The Self. All Is There.

In Putting Off What One Has To Do, One Runs The Risk Of Never Being Able To Do It.

Procrastination

And Over Your Unconsecrated Head You'll Hear The Howling Wolves Lament Their Fate And Yours The Livelong Year.

There Exist Only Three Beings Worthy Of Respect: The Priest, The Soldier, The Poet. To Know, To Kill, To Create.

Everything For Me Becomes Allegory

An Artist Is An Artist Only Because Of His Exquisite Sense Of Beauty, A Sense Which Shows Him Intoxicating Pleasures, But Which At The Same Time Implies And Contains An Equally Exquisite Sense Of All Deformities And All Disproportion.

Evil Is Committed Without Effort, Naturally, Fatally; Goodness Is Always The Product Of Some Art.

This Industry [photography], By Invading The Territories Of Art, Has Become Art's Most Mortal Enemy.

Perfumes, Colours And Sounds Echo One Another.

I Have Always Been Astonished That Women Were Allowed To Enter Churches. What Conversation Can They Possibly Have With God? The Eternal Venus (caprice, Hysteria, Fantasy) Is One Of The Seductive Forms Of The Devil.

There Are As Many Kinds Of Beauty As There Are Habitual Ways Of Seeking Happiness.

La, Tout N’est Qu’ordre Et Beauté Luxe, Calme Et Volupté There, There Is Nothing Else But Grace And Measure, Richness, Quietness, And Pleasure.

God Is The Only Being Who, In Order To Reign, Doesn't Even Need To Exist.

Nations, Like Families, Have Great Men Only In Spite Of Themselves.

L'imagination Est La Reine Du Vrai, Et Le Possible Est Une Des Provinces Du Vrai. Imagination Is The Queen Of The Truth And The Possible Is One Of The Provinces Of The Truth.

A Work Of Art Should Be Like A Well-planned Crime.

Strangeness Is The Indispensable Condiment Of All Beauty.

Thanks Be To God, Who Gives Us Sufferingas Sacred Remedy For All Our Sins,that Best And Purest Essence Which Preparesthe Strong In Spirit For Divine Delights!

Quand Me" Me Dieu N'existerait Pas, La Religion Serait Encore Sainte Et Divinedieu Est Le Seul E" Tre Qui, Pour Re Gner, N'ait Me" Me Pas Besoin D'exister. Even If God Did Not Exist, Religion Would Still Be Holyand Divine.god Isthe Only Being Who, Inorder Toreign, Need Not Even Exist.

Theory Of The True Civilization. It Is Not To Be Found In Gas Or Steam Or Table Turning. It Consists In The Diminution Of The Traces Of Original Sin.

The World Progresses Only Through Misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding

The Dandy Should Aspire To Be Uninterruptedly Sublime. He Should Live And Sleep In Front Of A Mirror.

From His Soft Fur, Golden And Brown, Goes Out So Sweet A Scent, One Night I Might Have Been Embalmed In It By Giving Him One Little Pet. He Is My Household's Guardian Soul; He Judges, He Presides, Inspires All Matters In His Royal Realm; Might He Be Fairy? Or A God? When My Eyes, To This Cat I Love Drawn As By A Magnet's Force, Turn Tamely Back Upon That Appeal, And When I Look Within Myself, I Notice With Astonishment The Fire Of His Opal Eyes, Clear Beacons Glowing, Living Jewels, Taking My Measure, Steadily.

I Am The Wound And The Knife! I Am The Slap And The Cheek! I Am The Limbs And The Rack, And The Victim And The Executioner! I Am The Vampire Of My Own Heart.

The Old Paris Is No More (the Form Of A City Changes Faster, Alas! Than A Mortal's Heart).

Music Fathoms The Sky.

It Would Be Difficult For Me Not To Conclude That The Most Perfect Type Of Masculine Beauty Is Satan, As Portrayed By Milton.

There Are Moments Of Existence When Time And Space Are More Profound, And The Awareness Of Existence Is Immensely Heightened.

What I Say Is That The Supreme And Singular Joy Of Making Love Resides In The Certainty Of Doing Evil.

The Will To Work Must Dominate, For Art Is Long And Time Is Brief.

My Concern Today Is With The Painting Of Manners Of The Present. The Past Is Interesting Not Only By Reason Of The Beauty Which Could Be Distilled From It By Those Artists For Whom It Was The Present, But Also Precisely Because It Is The Past, For Its Historical Value. It Is The Same With The Present. The Pleasure Which We Derive From The Representation Of The Present Is Due Not Only To The Beauty With Which It Can Be Invested, But Also To Its Essential Quality Of Being Present

Historical Value

The Devil Pulls The Strings Which Make Us Dance; We Find Delight In The Most Loathsome Things; Some Furtherance Of Hell Each New Day Brings, And Yet We Feel No Horror In That Rank Advance.

For The Merchant, Even Honesty Is A Financial Speculation.

What Is Love? The Need Of Coming Out Of One's Self.

It Is The Greatest Art Of The Devil To Convince Us He Does Not Exist.

Whether You Come From Heaven Or Hell, What Does It Matter, O Beauty!

It's The Devil Who Pulls The Strings That Make Us Dance

He Possessed The Logic Of All Good Intentions And A Knowledge Of All The Tricks Of His Trade, And Yet He Never Succeeded At Anything, Because He Believed Too Much In The Impossible. Surprising? Why So? He Was Forever In The Act Of Conceiving It!

It Is From The Womb Of Art That Criticism Was Born.

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.

A Silent Mouth Is Sweet To Hear.

Those Men Get Along Best With Women Who Can Get Along Best Without Them.

The Taste For Pleasure Attaches Us To The Present. The Concern With Our Salvation Leaves Us Hanging On The Future.

Ne Cherchez Plus Mon Coeur; Les Be" Tes L'ont Mange . Don't Search Any Further For My Heart; Wild Beasts Ate It.

Il Faut Travailler Sinon Par Go U" T, Au Moins Par De Sespoir, Puisque, Tout Bien Ve Rifie , Travailler Est Moins Ennuyeux Que S'amuser. We Should Work: If Not By Preference, At Least Out Of Despair. All Things Considered, Work Is Less Boring Than Amusement.

I Love To Watch The Fine Mist Of The Night Come On, The Windows And The Stars Illumined, One By One, The Rivers Of Dark Smoke Pour Upward Lazily, And The Moon Rise And Turn Them Silver. I Shall See The Springs, The Summers, And The Autumns Slowly Pass; And When Old Winter Puts His Blank Face To The Glass, I Shall Close All My Shutters, Pull The Curtains Tight, And Build Me Stately Palaces By Candlelight.

What Is Art? Prostitution.

I Have Cultivated My Hysteria With Delight And Terror. Now I Suffer Continually From Vertigo, And Today, 23rd Of January, 1862, I Have Received A Singular Warning, I Have Felt The Wind Of The Wing Of Madness Pass Over Me.

I Watch The Springs, The Summers, The Autumns; And When Comes The Winter Snow Monotonous, I Shut All The Doors And Shutters To Build In The Night My Fairy Palace.

La Volupte Unique Et Supre" Me De L'amour G|"t Dans La Certitude De Faire Le Mal. The Unique, Supreme Pleasure Of Love Consists In The Certainty Of Doing Evil.

The Poet Enjoys The Incomparable Privilege Of Being Able To Be Himself And Others, As He Wishes.

Progress, This Great Heresy Of Decay.

Pure Draughtsmen Are Philosophers And Dialecticians. Colourists Are Epic Poets.

Everything, Alas, Is An Abyss, Actions, Desires, Dreams, Words!

The Solitary And Thoughtful Stroller Finds A Singular Intoxication In This Universal Communion. The Man Who Loves To Lose Himself In A Crowd Enjoys Feverish Delights That The Egoist Locked Up In Himself As In A Box, And The Slothful Man Like A Mollusk In His Shell, Will Be Eternally Deprived Of. He Adopts As His Own All The Occupations, All The Joys And All The Sorrows That Chance Offers.

Wine Transforms Moles Into Eagles.

But The True Voyagers Are Only Those Who Leave Just To Be Leaving; Hearts Light, Like Balloons, They Never Turn Aside From Their Fatality And Without Knowing Why They Always Say: "let's Go!

Cats, So Strong And Gentle, The Pride Of The Household.

Ah! Seigneur! Donnez-moi La Force Et Le Courage De Contempler Mon Coeur Et Mon Corps Sans De Go U" T. Lord! Give Me The Strength And The Courage To See My Heart And My Body Without Disgust.

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.

How Little Remains Of The Man I Once Was, Save The Memory Of Him! But Remembering Is Only A New Form Of Suffering.

As The End Of The Century Approaches, All Our Culture Is Like Flies At The Beginning Of Winter. Having Lost Their Agility, Dreamy And Demented, They Turn Slowly About The Window In The First Icy Mists Of Morning, . . . [then] They Fall Down The Curtains.

Artist Should Look At The Reality And Brutality Of Modern Life In All Its Color, Nature With All Its Imperfections - That Should Be The Challenge To The Modern Painter Not The Didactic Idealization Of The Past. The New Generation Should Forge A New Path.

I Should Like The Fields Tinged With Red, The Rivers Yellow And The Trees Painted Blue. Nature Has No Imagination.

Color... Thinks By Itself, Independently Of The Object It Clothes.

The Man Who Says His Evening Prayer Is A Captain Posting His Sentinels. He Can Sleep.

Where Ever I Am Not Is The Place Where I Am Myself.

There Is 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.

In Art, There Is One Thing Which Does Not Receive Sufficient Attention. The Element Which Is Left To The Human Will Is Not Nearly So Large As People Think.

Dancing Is Poetry With Arms And Legs.

What Men Call Love Is A Very Small, Restricted, Feeble Thing Compared With This Ineffable Orgy, This Divine Prostitution Of The Soul Giving Itself Entire, All Its Poetry And All Its Charity, To The Unexpected As It Comes Along, To The Stranger As He Passes.

The Habit Of Doing One's Duty Drives Away Fear.

All The Visible Universe Is Nothing But A Shop Of Images And Signs.

From That Moment Onwards, Our Loathsome Society Rushed, Like Narcissus, To Contemplate Its Trivial Image On A Metallic Plate. A Form Of Lunacy, An Extraordinary Fanaticism Took Hold Of These New Sun-worshippers.

Anybody, Providing He Knows How To Be Amusing, Has The Right To Talk About Himself.

Strangeness Is A Necessary Ingredient In Beauty.

It Is Time To Get Drunk! So As Not To Be The Martyred Slaves Of Time, Get Drunk; Get Drunk Without Stopping! On Wine, On Poetry, Or On Virtue, As You Wish.

How Bittersweet It Is, On Winter's Night, To Listen, By The Sputtering, Smoking Fire, As Distant Memories, Through The Fog-dimmed Light, Rise, To The Muffled Chime Of Churchbell Choir.

When It Meows, One Scarcely Hears It... It Has Not The Need Of Words To Speak The Lengthiest Phraseologies.

In Our Corruption We Perceive Beauties Unrevealed To Ancient Times.

If Photography Is Allowed To Stand In For Art In Some Of Its Functions It Will Soon Supplant Or Corrupt It Completely Thanks To The Natural Support It Will Find In The Stupidity Of The Multitude. It Must Return To Its Real Task, Which Is To Be The Servant Of The Sciences And The Arts, But The Very Humble Servant, Like Printing And Shorthand Which Have Neither Created Nor Supplanted Literature.

Both Ardent Lovers And Austere Scholars, When Once They Come To The Years Of Discretion, Love Cats, So Strong And Gentle, The Pride Of The Household, Who Like Them Are Sensitive To The Cold, And Sedentary.

Eternal Superiority Of The Dandy. What Is The Dandy?

I Am The Vampire At My Own Veins.

The Priest Is An Immense Being Because He Makes The Crowd Believe Astonishing Things.

Above My Cradle Loomed The Bookcase Where/ Latin Ashes And The Dust Of Greece/ Mingled With Novels, History, And Verse/ In One Dark Babel. I Was Folio-high/ When I First Heard The Voices.

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.

Our Squalid Society Rushed, Narcissus To A Man, To Gaze On Its Trivial Image On A Scrap Of Metal.

In My Mind It Strolls, As Well As In My Apartment. A Cat, Strong, Sweet And Delightful.

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.

Il Faut E Pater Le Bourgeois. One Must Astound The Bourgeois.

Nothing Is As Tedious As The Limping Days, When Snowdrifts Yearly Cover All The Ways, And Ennui, Sour Fruit Of Incurious Gloom, Assumes Control Of Fate’s Immortal Loom

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.

Blessed Art Thou, Lord, Who Giveth Suffering As A Divine Remedy For Our Impurities.

Everything That Is Beautiful And Noble Is The Product Of Reason And Calculation.

A Dandy Does Nothing.

Any Newspaper, From The First Line To The Last, Is Nothing But A Web Of Horrors, I Cannot Understand How An Innocent Hand Can Touch A Newspaper Without Convulsing In Disgust.

Romanticism Is Precisely Situated Neither In Choice Of Subject, Nor Exact Truth, But In The Way Of Feeling.

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.

Everything That Gives Pleasure Has Its Reason. To Scorn The Mobs Of Those Who Go Astray Is Not The Means To Bring Them Around.

Evil Is Done Without Effort, Naturally, It's Destiny; Good Is Always The Product Of Skill.

When A Singer Puts His Hand On His Heart, It Means Usually, I Will Always Love You!

The Idea Which Man Forms Of Beauty Imprints Itself Throughout His Attire, Rumples Or Stiffens His Garments, Rounds Off Or Aligns His Gestures, And, Finally, Even Subtly Penetrates The Features Of His Face.

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. Pleasure Consumes Us. Work Strengthens Us. Let Us Choose.

Comme L'imagination A Cre E Le Monde, Elle Le Gouverne. Because Imagination Created The World, It Governs It.

What Is It That Brings On These Moods Of Yours? Nothing Mysterious: The Ordinary Pain Of Being Alive.

Being A Useful Man Has Always Seemed To Me To Be Something Truly Hideous.

Beware Of All The Paradoxical In Love. It Is Simplicity Which Saves, It Is Simplicity Which Brings Happiness...love Should Be Love.

To Glorify The Cult Of Images (my Great, My Only, My Earliest Passion).

There Is No Dream Of Love, However Ideal It May Be, Which Does Not End Up With A Fat, Greedy Baby Hanging From The Breast.

I Consider It Useless And Tedious To Represent What Exists, Because Nothing That Exists Satisfies Me. Nature Is Ugly, And I Prefer The Monsters Of My Fancy To What Is Positively Trivial.

Etre Un Homme Utile M'a Paru Toujours Quelque Chose De Bien Hideux. To Be Useful Has Always Seemed To Me Quite Hideous.

If The Poet Has Pursued A Moral Objective, He Has Diminished His Poetic Force.

The Man Who Is Unable To People His Solitude Is Equally Unable To Be Alone In A Bustling Crowd. The Poet Enjoys The Incomparable Privilege Of Being Able To Be Himself Or Some One Else, As He Chooses. [...] The Solitary And Thoughtful Stroller Finds A Singular Intoxication In This Universal Communion. [...] What Men Call Love Is A Very Small, Restricted, Feeble Thing Compared With This Ineffable Orgy, This Divine Prostitution Of The Soul Giving Itself Entire...to The Unexpected As It Comes Along, The Stranger As He Passes.

Who Would Dare Assign To Art The Sterile Function Of Imitating Nature?

Imitating Others

On The Day When A Young Writer Corrects His First Proof-sheet He Is As Proud As A Schoolboy Who Has Just Got His First Dose Of Pox.

A Man Who Drinks Only Water Has A Secret To Hide From His Fellow Men.

There Are In Every Man, Always, Two Simultaneous Allegiances, One To God, The Other To Satan. Invocation Of God, Or Spirituality, Is A Desire To Climb Higher; That Of Satan, Or Animality, Is Delight In Descent.

Imagination Is The Queen Of Truth, And Possibility Is One Of The Regions Of Truth. She Is Positively Akin To Infinity.

I Am A Cemetery By The Moon Unblessed.

For Each Letter Received From A Creditor, Write Fifty Lines On An Extraterrestrial Subject And You Will Be Saved.

The People Adore Authority.

For Me, Romanticism Is The Most Recent And The Most Current Expression Of Beauty.

Hashish Will Be, Indeed, For The Impressions And Familiar Thoughts Of The Man, A Mirror Which Magnifies, Yet No More Than A Mirror.

The Artist Is Today And Has Been For Many Years, Despite His Absence Of Merit, Simply A Spoiled Child. So Many Honors, So Much Money Bestowed On Men Without Souls And Without Education.

We Revel In The Laxness Of The Path We Take.

The Study Of Beauty Is A Duel In Which The Artist Cries Out In Terror Before He Is Defeated.

It Is At Once By Way Of Poetry And Through Poetry, As With Music, That The Soul Glimpses Splendors From Beyond The Tomb; And When An Exquisite Poem Brings One's Eyes To The Point Of Tears, Those Tears Are Not Evidence Of An Excess Of Joy, They Are Witness Far More To An Exacerbated Melancholy, A Disposition Of The Nerves, A Nature Exiled Among Imperfect Things, Which Would Like To Possess, Without Delay, A Paradise Revealed On This Very Same Earth.

Imperfect Things

It Is Good Sometimes That The Happy Of This World Should Learn, Were It Only To Humble Their Foolish Pride For An Instant, That There Are Higher, Wider, And Rarer Joys Than Theirs.

I Set Out To Discover The Why Of It, And To Transform My Pleasure Into Knowledge.

What Can An Eternity Of Damnation Matter To Someone Who Has Felt, If Only For A Second, The Infinity Of Delight?

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