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Extract The Eternal From The Ephemeral.
-Charles Baudelaire
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Extract The Eternal From

Charles Baudelaire
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Extract The Eternal From The Ephemeral.

Understanding the Quote: "extract the eternal from the ephemeral...."

This quote by Charles Baudelaire reflects deeply on the theme of ephemeral. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Ephemeral, Eternal, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Charles Baudelaire interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire is celebrated for insightful thoughts on ephemeral and eternal. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Ephemeral
Eternal
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Forest, I Fear You! In My Ruined Heart Your Roaring Wakens The Same Agony As In Cathedrals When The Organ Moans And From The Depths I Hear That I Am Damned.
Heart
Agony
Depth
A Friend Of Mine, The Most Innocuous Dreamer Who Ever Lived, Once Set A Forest On Fire To See, As He Said, If It Would Catch As Easily As People Said. The First Ten Times The Experiment Was A Failure; But On The Eleventh It Succeeded All Too Well.
Fire
People
Dreamer
It Is The Greatest Art Of The Devil To Convince Us He Does Not Exist.
Art
Convince Us
Evil
You Are Sitting And Smoking; You Believe That You Are Sitting In Your Pipe, And That Your Pipe Is Smoking You; You Are Exhaling Yourself In Bluish Clouds. You Feel Just Fine In This Position, And Only One Thing Gives You Worry Or Concern: How Will You Ever Be Able To Get Out Of Your Pipe?
Believe
Clouds
Feels Just
The Being Who, For Most Men, Is The Source Of The Most Lively, And Even, Be It Said, To The Shame Of Philosophical Delights, The Most Lasting Joys; The Being Towards Or For Whom All Their Efforts Tend For Whom And By Whom Fortunes Are Made And Lost; For Whom, But Especially By Whom, Artists And Poets Compose Their Most Delicate Jewels; From Whom Flow The Most Enervating Pleasures And The Most Enriching Sufferings - Woman, In A Word, Is Not, For The Artist In General... Only The Female Of The Human Species. She Is Rather A Divinity, A Star.
Stars
Women
Philosophical
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!
Forever
Too Much
Impossible
Two Fundamental Literary Qualities: Supernaturalism And Irony.
Two
Quality
Fundamentals
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.
Love
Men
Leisure
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.
Morning
Drinking
Flower
Any Man Who Does Not Accept The Conditions Of Life Sells His Soul.
Life
Men
History
It's The Devil Who Pulls The Strings That Make Us Dance
Devil
Strings
Genius Is Nothing More Nor Less Than Childhood Recaptured At Will.
Childhood
Inspire
Genius
The Dandy Should Aspire To Be Uninterruptedly Sublime. He Should Live And Sleep In Front Of A Mirror.
Sleep
Mirrors
Sublime
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.
Art
Mean
Color
Go Then, A Starveling Girl With No Perfume Or Pearls, Only Your Nudity O My Beauty!
Girl
Pearls
Nudity
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.
Butterfly
Bird
Together
I Felt Passing Over Me The Wind Of The Wing Of Madness.
Wind
Wings
Madness
Evil Comes Up Softly Like A Flower.
Flower
Evil
Come Up
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.
Memories
Winter
Night
It Would Perhaps Be Nice To Be Alternately The Victim And The Executioner.
Nice
Being Nice
Victim
But A Dandy Can Never Be A Vulgar Man
Men
Vulgar
Dandy
Unable To Do Away With Love, The Church Found A Way To Decontaminate It By Creating Marriage.
Love
Creating
Church
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.
Latin
Dark
Dust
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.
Dream
World
Action
The Devil's Finest Trick Is To Persuade You That He Does Not Exist.
Life
Devil
Doe
The Lover Of Life Makes The Whole World Into His Family, Just As The Lover Of The Fair Sex Creates His From All The Lovely Women He Has Found, From Those That Could Be Found, And Those Who Are Impossible To Find.
Love
Sex
World
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.
Education
Art
Children
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.
Sun
Moments
That Moment
The Whole Visible Universe Is But A Storehouse Of Images And Signs To Which The Imagination Will Give A Relative Place And Value; It Is A Sort Of Pasture Which The Imagination Must Digest And Transform.
Giving
Imagination
Pastures
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.
Archer
Clouds
Wings
What Is Love? The Need Of Coming Out Of One's Self.
Love
Self
Needs
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.
Morning
Fall
Winter
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.
Summer
Spring
Autumn
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.
Hate
Sleep
Blood
Photographers, You Will Never Become Artists. All You Are Is Mere Copiers.
Artist
Photographer
Copiers
What Is It That Brings On These Moods Of Yours? Nothing Mysterious: The Ordinary Pain Of Being Alive.
Pain
Ordinary
Alive
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.
Eye
Imperfect Things
Poetry
By Nature, By Necessity Itself, [primitive Man] Is Encyclopedic, While Civilized Man Finds Himself Confined In The Infinitely Small Regions Of Specialization.
Knowledge
Men
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A Dandy Does Nothing.
Doe
Dandy
Idleness
I Have More Memories Than If I Were A Thousand Years Old.
Memories
Years
Thousand
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
Artist
Past
Historical Value
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.
Drinking
Wine
Drunk
The Pleasure We Derive From The Representation Of The Present Is Due, Not Only To The Beauty It Can Be Clothed In, But Also To Its Essential Quality Of Being The Present.
Beauty
Time
Aquariums
What Is Exhilarating In Bad Taste Is The Aristocratic Pleasure Of Giving Offense.
Giving
Literature
Taste
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.
Men
Thoughtful
Joy
Discover Day To Day Excitement.
Excitement
Day To Day
Imagination Is The Queen Of Truth, And Possibility Is One Of The Regions Of Truth. She Is Positively Akin To Infinity.
Queens
Imagination
Infinity
There Is No More Steely Barb Than That Of The Infinite.
Literature
Infinity
Infinite
Everything For Me Becomes Allegory
Allegory
...and The Lamp Having At Last Resigned Itself To Death. There Was Nothing Now But Firelight In The Room, And Every Time A Flame Uttered A Gasp For Breath It Flushed Her Amber Skin With The Blood Of Its Bloom.
Flames
Blood
Skins
Passion I Hate, And Spirit Does Me Wrong. Let Us Love Gently.
Hate
Passion
Doe
Every Idea Is Endowed Of Itself With Immortal Life, Like A Human Being. All Created Form, Even That Which Is Created By Man, Is Immortal. For Form Is Independent Of Matter: Molecules Do Not Constitute Form.
Independent
Men
Ideas
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.
Inspirational
Wine
Drunk
Color... Thinks By Itself, Independently Of The Object It Clothes.
Thinking
Color
Clothes
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.
Hysteria
Seductive
Devil
Imagination Is An Almost Divine Faculty Which, Without Recourse To Any Philosophical Method, Immediately Perceives Everything: The Secret And Intimate Connections Between Things, Correspondences And Analogies.
Art
Philosophical
Imagination
My Love, Do You Recall The Object Which We Saw, That Fair, Sweet, Summer Morn! At A Turn In The Path A Foul Carcass On A Gravel Strewn Bed, Its Legs Raised In The Air, Like A Lustful Woman, Burning And Dripping With Poisons, Displayed In A Shameless, Nonchalant Way Its Belly, Swollen With Gases.
Summer
Sweet
Air
Oh, Creator! Can Monsters Exist In The Sight Of Him Who Alone Knows How They Were Invented, How They Invented Themselves, And How They Might Not Have Invented Themselves?
Sight
Monsters
Might
My Heart Is Lost; The Beasts Have Eaten It.
Heart
Beast
My Heart
What Is Irritating About Love Is That It Is A Crime That Requires An Accomplice.
Best Love
Love Is
Crime
Today I Felt Pass Over Me A Breath Of Wind From The Wings Of Madness.
Wind
Wings
Insanity
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.
Hands
Lines
Lasts
We Love Women In Proportion To Their Degree Of Strangeness To Us.
Women
Degrees
Proportion
Genius Is Simply Childhood, Rediscovered By An Act Of Will.
Childhood
Genius
How Little Remains Of The Man I Once Was, Save The Memory Of Him! But Remembering Is Only A New Form Of Suffering.
Memories
Men
Suffering
With Wine, Poetry, Or Virtue As You Choose. But Get Drunk.
Wine
Drunk
Virtue
Today I Had A Strange Warning. I Felt The Wind Of Insanity Brush My Mind.
Wind
Insanity
Mind
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.
Sweet
Eye
Cat
Our Religion Is Itself Profoundly Sad - A Religion Of Universal Anguish, And One Which, Because Of Its Very Catholicity, Grants Full Liberty To The Individual And Asks No Better Than To Be Celebrated In Each Man's Own Language - So Long As He Knows Anguish And Is A Painter.
Pain
Men
Long
A Sweetheart Is A Bottle Of Wine, A Wife Is A Wine Bottle.
Funny
Cute
Marriage
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.
Essentials
Astonishment
Unexpected
What Do I Care If You Are Good? Be Beautiful! And Be Sad!
Beautiful
Care
I Care
Our Squalid Society Rushed, Narcissus To A Man, To Gaze On Its Trivial Image On A Scrap Of Metal.
Men
Narcissus
Metals
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.
Practice
Sorcery
Verbs
Beauty Is The Sole Ambition, The Exclusive Goal Of Taste.
Beauty
Ambition
Goal
A Study Of The Great Malady; Horror Of Home.
Home
Study
Horror
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.
Lying
Unique
Men
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.
Artist
Technique
Methodology
If The Poet Has Pursued A Moral Objective, He Has Diminished His Poetic Force.
Objectivity
Literature
Moral
A Man Who Drinks Only Water Has A Secret To Hide From His Fellow Men.
Men
Water
Secret
And Over Your Unconsecrated Head You'll Hear The Howling Wolves Lament Their Fate And Yours The Livelong Year.
Fate
Years
Lament
I Throw Fresh Seeds Out. Who Knows What Survives?
Seeds
Knows
The Immense Appetite We Have For Biography Comes From A Deep-seated Sense Of Equality.
Biographies
Appetite
Immense
The True Voyagers Are Those Who Go For The Sake Of Traveling . . . And Without Quite Knowing Why, They Say, 'let Us Depart!'.
Knowing
Sake
Dandyism Is The Last Flicker Of Heroism In Decadent Ages.... Dandyism Is A Setting Sun; Like The Declining Star, It Is Magnificent, Without Heat And Full Of Melancholy. But Alas! The Rising Tide Of Democracy, Which Spreads Everywhere And Reduces Everything To The Same Level, Is Daily Carrying Away These Last Champions Of Human Pride, And Submerging, In The Waters Of Oblivion, The Last Traces Of These Remarkable Myrmidons.
Stars
Pride
Water
Laments Of An Icarus The Paramours Of Courtesans Are Well And Satisfied, Content. But As For Me My Limbs Are Rent Because I Clasped The Clouds As Mine. I Owe It To The Peerless Stars Which Flame In The Remotest Sky That I See Only With Spent Eyes Remembered Suns I Knew Before. In Vain I Had At Heart To Find The Center And The End Of Space. Beneath Some Burning, Unknown Gaze I Feel My Very Wings Unpinned And, Burned Because I Beauty Loved, I Shall Not Know The Highest Bliss, And Give My Name To The Abyss Which Waits To Claim Me As Its Own.
Stars
Eye
Heart
J'ai Plus De Souvenirs Que Si J'avais Mille Ans. Ihavemorememoriesthanifiwereonethousandyearsold.
Souvenirs
Plus
Everything That Is Beautiful And Noble Is The Product Of Reason And Calculation.
Beautiful
Math
Noble
To Be Away From Home And Yet To Feel Oneself Everywhere At Home; To See The World, To Be At The Centre Of The World, And Yet To Remain Hidden From The World—impartial Natures Which The Tongue Can But Clumsily Define. The Spectator Is A Prince Who Everywhere Rejoices In His Incognito.
Home
World
Tongue
The More A Man Cultivates The Arts The Less He Fornicates. A More And More Apparent Cleavage Occurs Between The Spirit And The Brute.
Art
Men
Spirit
Il Faut E Pater Le Bourgeois. One Must Astound The Bourgeois.
Bourgeois
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.
Gambling
Soul
Nuisance
In Order For The Artist To Have A World To Express He Must First Be Situated In This World, Oppressed Or Oppressing, Resigned Or Rebellious, A Man Among Men.
Art
Men
Order
The Insatiable Thirst For Everything That Lies Beyond, And That Life Reveals, Is The Most Living Proof Of Our Immortality.
Lying
Immortality
Proof
Dancing Can Reveal All The Mystery That Music Conceals.
Dance
Ballet Class
Dancing
Beware Of All The Paradoxical In Love. It Is Simplicity Which Saves, It Is Simplicity Which Brings Happiness...love Should Be Love.
Love
Simplicity
Should
The Habit Of Doing One's Duty Drives Away Fear.
Habit
Duty
Those Men Get Along Best With Women Who Can Get Along Best Without Them.
Men
Literature
Quand Notre Coeur A Fait Une Fois Sa Vendange, Vivre Est Un Mal. Once Our Heart Has Been Harvested Once, Life Becomes Miserable.
Heart
Miserable
Has Beens
I Should Like The Fields Tinged With Red, The Rivers Yellow And The Trees Painted Blue. Nature Has No Imagination.
Rivers
Yellow
Blue
Romanticism Is Precisely Situated Neither In Choice Of Subject, Nor Exact Truth, But In The Way Of Feeling.
Choices
Feelings
Way
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.
Beauty
Monsters
Useless
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.
Country
Men
Cities
Eternal Superiority Of The Dandy. What Is The Dandy?
Eternal
Dandy
Superiority
The More One Works, The Better One Works, And The More One Wants To Work. The More One Produces, The More Fertile One Grows.
Work
Want
Produce
Multitude, Solitude: Equal And Interchangeable Terms For The Active And Prolific Poet.
Solitude
Crowds
Poet
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.
Grace
Pleasure
Richness
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.
Views
Political
Criticism
Where One Should See Only What Is Beautiful, Our Public Looks Only For What Is True.
Beauty
Beautiful
Looks
Delacroix Was Passionately In Love With Passion, But Coldly Determined To Express Passion As Clearly As Possible.
Passion
Determined
The Act Of Love Strongly Resembles Torture Or Surgery.
Love
Acts Of Love
Torture
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.
War
Wind
Wings
It Is One Of The Prodigious Privileges Of Art That The Horrific, Artistically Expressed, Becomes Beauty, And That Sorrow, Given Rhythm And Cadence, Fills The Spirit With A Calm Joy.
Beauty
Art
Joy
I Am The Vampire At My Own Veins.
Vampire
Veins
My Own
I Am Bored In France Because Everyone Resembles Voltaire.
Bored
France
Conformity
There Exist Only Three Beings Worthy Of Respect: The Priest, The Soldier, The Poet. To Know, To Kill, To Create.
Respect
Soldier
Three
The Priest Is An Immense Being Because He Makes The Crowd Believe Astonishing Things.
Believe
Literature
Crowds
When A Singer Puts His Hand On His Heart, It Means Usually, I Will Always Love You!
Love You
Heart
Mean
How Many Years Of Fatigue And Punishment It Takes To Learn The Simple Truth That Work, That Disagreeable Thing, Is The Only Way Of Not Suffering In Life, Or At All Events, Of Suffering Less.
Work
Simple
Years
For The Merchant, Even Honesty Is A Financial Speculation.
Honesty
Business
Financial
The Beautiful Is Always Bizarre.
Beautiful
Art
Creativity
Nothing In A Portrait Is A Matter Of Indifference. Gesture, Grimace, Clothing, Decor Even - All Must Combine To Realize A Character.
Character
Portraits
Portraiture
The Man Who Says His Evening Prayer Is A Captain Posting His Sentinels. He Can Sleep.
Prayer
Sleep
Men
Blessed Art Thou, Lord, Who Giveth Suffering As A Divine Remedy For Our Impurities.
Art
Blessed
Suffering
Love Is The Natural Occupation Of The Man Of Leisure.
Love
Men
Occupation
It Is By Universal Misunderstanding That All Agree. For If, By Ill Luck, People Understood Each Other, They Would Never Agree.
Good Luck
Agreement
People
I Set Out To Discover The Why Of It, And To Transform My Pleasure Into Knowledge.
Pleasure
In Putting Off What One Has To Do, One Runs The Risk Of Never Being Able To Do It.
Running
Procrastination
Risk
The Son Will Run Away From The Family Not At Eighteen But At Twelve, Emancipated By His Gluttonous Precocity; He Will Fly Not To Seek Heroic Adventures, Not To Deliver A Beautiful Prisoner From A Tower, Not To Immortalize A Garret With Sublime Thoughts, But To Found A Business, To Enrich Himself And To Compete With His Infamous Papa.
Beautiful
Running
Adventure
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.
God
Men
Two
Through The Unknown, We'll Find The New
Finer Than Any Sand Are Dusts Of Gold That Gleam, Vague Starpoints, In The Mystic Iris Of Their Eyes.
Cat
Eye
Dust
France At The Dinner Table In Faraway Places; But Here, Among Ourselves, In The Family, Let Us Face The Facts: France Is Not Poetic; To Tell The Truth, She Even Feels A Congenital Horror Of Poetry. Among The Writers Who Use Verse, Those Whom She Will Always Prefer Are The Most Prosaic.
Use
France
Facts
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.
Despair
Amusement
Boring
In Our Corruption We Perceive Beauties Unrevealed To Ancient Times.
Ancient
Corruption
Ancient Times
Here Comes The Time When, Vibrating On Its Stem, Every Flower Fumes Like A Censer; Noises And Perfumes Circle In The Evening Air.
Time
Nature
Flower
Who Among Us Has Not, In Moments Of Ambition, Dreamt Of The Miracle Of A Form Of Poetic Prose, Musical But Without Rhythm And Rhyme, Both Supple And Staccato Enough To Adapt Itself To The Lyrical Movements Of Our Souls, The Undulating Movements Of Our Reveries, And The Convulsive Movements Of Our Consciences? This Obsessive Ideal Springs Above All From Frequent Contact With Enormous Cities, From The Junction Of Their Innumerable Connections.
Spring
Ambition
Cities
I Am A Cemetery By The Moon Unblessed.
Moon
Cemetery
Unable To Suppress Love, The Church Wanted At Least To Disinfect It, And It Created Marriage.
Church
Wanted
We Revel In The Laxness Of The Path We Take.
Path
Life Has But One True Charm: The Charm Of The Game. But What If We’re Indifferent To Whether We Win Or Lose?
Winning
Games
What If
And, Drunk With My Own Madness, I Shouted At Him Furiously, "make Life Beautiful! Make Life Beautiful!
Beautiful
Drunk
Madness
There Are Some Temptations Which Are So Strong That They Must Be Virtues.
Strong
Temptation
Virtue
I Am Unable To Understand How A Man Of Honor Could Take A Newspaper In His Hands Without A Shudder Of Disgust.
Men
Hands
Honor
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.
Summer
Morning
Laughter
Music Fathoms The Sky.
Sky
Fathom
In Literature As In Ethics, There Is Danger, As Well As Glory, In Being Subtle. Aristocracy Isolates Us.
Aristocracy
Literature
Ethics
In The Domain Of Painting And Statuary, The Present-day Credo Of The Worldly Wise, Especially In France, Is This: ... I Believe That Art Is, And Can Only Be, The Exact Reproduction Of Nature... An Avenging God Has Heard The Prayers Of This Multitude; Daguerre Was His Messiah.
Wise
Art
Prayer
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.
Artist
Pleasure
Deformity
For Me, Romanticism Is The Most Recent And The Most Current Expression Of Beauty.
Beauty
Expression
Currents
Where Ever I Am Not Is The Place Where I Am Myself.
It Is Regrettable That, Among The Rights Of Man, The Right Of Contradicting Oneself Has Been Forgotten.
Regret
Men
Rights
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!
Wine
Order
Drunk
Torture, As The Art Of Discovering The Truth, Is Barbaric Nonsense; It Is The Application Of A Material Means To A Spiritual End.
Spiritual
Art
Mean
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.
Beauty
Causes
Glimpse
To Be A Great Man And A Saint To Oneself, That's The Only Important Thing.
Men
Important
Saint
Like Those Great Sphinxes Lounging Through Eternity In Noble Attitudes Upon The Desert Sand, They Gaze Incuriously At Nothing, Calm And Wise.
Wise
Attitude
Cat
Doubt, Or The Absence Of Faith And Naivete, Is A Vice Peculiar To This Age, For No One Is Obedient Nowadays; And Naivete, Which Means The Dominance Of Temperament In The Manner, Is A Gift From God, Possessed By Very Few.
Mean
Doubt
Age
If Wine Were To Disappear From Human Production, I Believe It Would Cause An Absence, A Failure In Health And Intellect, A Void Much More Terrifying Than All The Recesses And The Deviations For Which Wine Is Regarded As Responsible.
Believe
Wine
Void
Love Is A Taste For Prostitution. In Fact, There Is No Noble Pleasure That Cannot Be Reduced To Prostitution.
Love
Noble
Taste
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. Absolute And Eternal Beauty Does Not Exist, Or Rather It Is Only An Abstraction Creamed From The General Surface Of Different Beauties. The Particular Element In Each Manifestation Comes From The Emotions: And Just As We Have Our Own Particular Emotions, So We Have Our Own Beauty.
Beauty
Justice
Doe
Amer Savoir, Celui Qu'on Tire Du Voyage! Bitter Is The Knowledge Gained In Travelling.
Voyages
Bitter
Tire
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.
Summer
Stars
Spring
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.
Laughter
Hate
Heart
A Man Who From The Beginning Has Long Been Soaked In The Languid Atmosphere Of A Woman, The Scent Of Her Hands, Her Bosom, Her Knees, Her Hair, Her Lithe And Flowing Clothes, Sweet Bath, Suavely Scented With Ointments, Has Acquired A Delicacy Of Skin, A Refinement Of Tone, A Kind Of Androgyny Without Which The Toughest And Most Virile Of Geniuses Remains, When It Comes To Artistic Perfection, An Incomplete Being.
Women
Hair
Hands
Wine Transforms Moles Into Eagles.
Wine
Eagles
Moles
True Civilization Does Not Lie In Gas, Nor In Steam, Nor In Turn-tables. It Lies In The Reduction Of The Traces Of Original Sin.
Lying
Civilization
Doe
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.
Eye
Cities
Monsters
Cats, So Strong And Gentle, The Pride Of The Household.
Strong
Cat
Pride
Nothing Can Be Done Except Little By Little.
Perseverance
Done
Literature
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.
Civilization
Tables
Sin
You Walk On Corpses, Beauty, Undismayed.
Walks
Corpses
Nature Is A Word, An Allegory, A Mold, An Embossing, If You Will.
Mold
Allegory
Ifs
There Are As Many Kinds Of Beauty As There Are Habitual Ways Of Seeking Happiness.
Happiness
Beauty
Way
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.
Men
Thoughtful
Love Is
The Photographic Industry Was The Refuge Of All The Painters Who Couldn't Make It, Either Because They Had No Talent Or Because They Were Too Lazy To Finish Their Studies. Hence This Universal Infatuation Was Not Only Characterized By Blindness And Stupidity, But Also By Vindictiveness.
Stupidity
Lazy
Talent
It Is The Pleasure Of Astonishing Others, And The Proud Satisfaction Of Never Being Astonished By Them.
Proud
Satisfaction
Pleasure
Nature... Is Nothing But The Inner Voice Of Self-interest.
Nature
Self
Voice
Evil Is Committed Without Effort, Naturally, Fatally; Goodness Is Always The Product Of Some Art.
Art
Evil
Effort
Drink Wine, Drink Poetry, Drink Virtue.
Wine
Drink
Virtue
All The Visible Universe Is Nothing But A Shop Of Images And Signs.
Shops
Visible
Universe
Everything That Gives Pleasure Has Its Reason. To Scorn The Mobs Of Those Who Go Astray Is Not The Means To Bring Them Around.
Mean
Giving
Reason
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.
Queens
Imagination
Provinces
Every Healthy Man Can Do Without Food For Two Days — But Without Poetry, Never!
Food
Men
Two
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.
Artist
Past
Reality
The Cannon Thunders... Limbs Fly In All Directions... One Can Hear The Groans Of Victims And The Howling Of Those Performing The Sacrifice... It's Humanity In Search Of Happiness.
Funny
Happiness
War
Always Be A Poet, Even In Prose.
Writing
Poetry
Literature
Remembering Is Only A New Form Of Suffering.
Suffering
Remember
Form
It Is Necessary To Work, If Not From Inclination, At Least From Despair. Everything Considered, Work Is Less Boring Than Amusing Oneself.
Despair
Boring
Amusing
Where Are The Dogs Going? You People Who Pay So Little Attention Ask. They Are Going About Their Business. And They Are Very Punctilious, Without Wallets, Notes, And Without Briefcases.
Funny
Dog
People
What Can An Eternity Of Damnation Matter To Someone Who Has Felt, If Only For A Second, The Infinity Of Delight?
Damnation
Delight
Matter
There Exist Certain Individuals Who Are, By Nature, Given Purely To Contemplation And Are Utterly Unsuited To Action, And Who, Nevertheless, Under A Mysterious And Unknown Impulse, Sometimes Act With A Speed Which They Themselves Would Have Thought Beyond Them.
Nature
Action
Mysterious
An Oasis Of Horror In A Desert Of Boredom.
Oasis
Boredom
Desert
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. But On What? Wine, Poetry Or Virtue, As You Wish. But Be Drunk.
Wine
Drunk
Wish
The Devil's Hand Directs Our Every Move - / The Things We Loathed Become The Things We Love
Moving
Hands
Devil
To The Solemn Graves, Near A Lonely Cemetery, My Heart Like A Muffled Drum Is Beating Funeral Marches.
Life
Lonely
Heart
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.
Art
Thinking
People
Within The Bottle's Depths, The Wine's Soul Sang One Night. Drink Wine, Drink Poetry, Drink Virtue.
Wine
Night
Soul
We All Have The Republican Spirit In Our Veins, Like Syphilis In Our Bones. We Are Democratized And Venerealized.
Government
Veins
Syphilis
Who Among Us Has Not Dreamt, In Moments Of Ambition, Of The Miracle Of A Poetic Prose, Musical Without Rhythm And Rhyme, Supple And Staccato Enough To Adapt To The Lyrical Stirrings Of The Soul, The Undulations Of Dreams, And Sudden Leaps Of Consciousness.
Dream
Ambition
Miracle
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