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I Am The Vampire At My Own Veins.
-Charles Baudelaire
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I Am The Vampire

Charles Baudelaire
...
I Am The Vampire At My Own Veins.

Understanding the Quote: "i am the vampire at my own veins...."

This quote by Charles Baudelaire reflects deeply on the theme of vampire. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Vampire, Veins, My Own, 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 vampire and veins. 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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Topic
Vampire
Veins
My Own
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Where Ever I Am Not Is The Place Where I Am Myself.
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
An Artist Is Only An Artist On Condition That He Neglects No Aspect Of His Dual Nature. This Dualism Is The Power Of Being Oneself And Someone Else At One And The Same Time.
Inspiring
Art
Dual Nature
For Me, Romanticism Is The Most Recent And The Most Current Expression Of Beauty.
Beauty
Expression
Currents
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.
Boredom
Boring
Amusing
Color... Thinks By Itself, Independently Of The Object It Clothes.
Thinking
Color
Clothes
Tell Me, Enigmatical Man, Whom Do You Love Best, Your Father, Your Mother, Your Sister, Or Your Brother? I Have Neither Father, Nor Mother, Nor Sister, Nor Brother. Your Friends? Now You Use A Word Whose Meaning I Have Never Known. Your Country? I Do Not Know In What Latitude It Lies. Beauty? I Could Indeed Love Her, Goddess And Immortal. Gold? I Hate It As You Hate God. Then, What Do You Love, Extraordinary Stranger? I Love The Clouds The Clouds That Pass Up There Up There The Wonderful Clouds!
Mother
Country
Brother
The Old Paris Is No More (the Form Of A City Changes Faster, Alas! Than A Mortal's Heart).
Heart
Cities
Paris
On The Vaporization And The Centralization Of The Self. All Is There.
Self
Centralization
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
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
Even When She Walks One Would Believe That She Dances.
Dance
Believe
Ballet
The Will To Work Must Dominate, For Art Is Long And Time Is Brief.
Time
Art
Work
Today I Felt Pass Over Me A Breath Of Wind From The Wings Of Madness.
Wind
Wings
Insanity
What Is Art? Prostitution.
Sarcastic
Art
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To The Solemn Graves, Near A Lonely Cemetery, My Heart Like A Muffled Drum Is Beating Funeral Marches.
Life
Lonely
Heart
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.
Heart
Knives
Self
The Taste For Pleasure Attaches Us To The Present. The Concern With Our Salvation Leaves Us Hanging On The Future.
Hanging On
Taste
Pleasure
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
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.
Mean
Men
Order
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
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
Modernity Is The Transient, The Fleeting, The Contingent; It Is One Half Of Art, The Other Being The Eternal And The Immovable.
Art
Fleeting
Half
Through The Unknown, We'll Find The New
In Putting Off What One Has To Do, One Runs The Risk Of Never Being Able To Do It.
Running
Procrastination
Risk
If Wine Disappeared From Human Production, I Believe There Would Be, In The Health And Intellect Of The Planet, A Void, A Deficiency Far More Terrible Than All The Excesses And Deviations For Which Wine Is Made Responsible. Is It Not Reasonable To Suggest That People That Never Drink Wine, Whether Naive Or Doctrinaire, Are Fools Or Hypocrites....?
Believe
Wine
Hypocrite
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
For The Perfect Idler, For The Passionate Observer It Becomes An Immense Source Of Enjoyment To Establish His Dwelling In The Throng, In The Ebb And Flow, The Bustle, The Fleeting And The Infinite. To Be Away From Home And Yet To Feel At Home Anywhere; To See The World, To Be At The Very Centre Of The World, And Yet To Be Unseen Of The World, Such Are Some Of The Minor Pleasures Of Those Independent, Intense And Impartial Spirits, Who Do Not Lend Themselves Easily To Linguistic Definitions. The Observer Is A Prince Enjoying His Incognito Wherever He Goes.
Travel
Home
Independent
Any Man Who Does Not Accept The Conditions Of Life Sells His Soul.
Life
Men
History
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
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
Evil Is Committed Without Effort, Naturally, Fatally; Goodness Is Always The Product Of Some Art.
Art
Evil
Effort
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
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
Even In The Centuries Which Appear To Us To Be The Most Monstrous And Foolish, The Immortal Appetite For Beauty Has Always Found Satisfaction.
Beauty
Apathy
Satisfaction
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
In Certain Almost Supernatural States Of The Soul, The Profundity Of Life Reveals Itself Entirely In The Spectacle, However Ordinary It May Be, Before One's Eyes. It Becomes Its Symbol.
Eye
Soul
Perception
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
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!
Strong
Essence
Giving
If The Poet Has Pursued A Moral Objective, He Has Diminished His Poetic Force.
Objectivity
Literature
Moral
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
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.
Photography
Art
Believe
The Devil's Finest Trick Is To Persuade You That He Does Not Exist.
Life
Devil
Doe
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
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
Delacroix Was Passionately In Love With Passion, But Coldly Determined To Express Passion As Clearly As Possible.
Passion
Determined
To Handle A Language Skillfully Is To Practice A Kind Of Evocative Sorcery.
Practice
Sorcery
Language
What I Say Is That The Supreme And Singular Joy Of Making Love Resides In The Certainty Of Doing Evil.
Love
Evil
Joy
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
Nearly All Our Originality Comes From The Stamp That Time Impresses Upon Our Sensibility.
Time
Funny Basketball
Originality
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
The Study Of Beauty Is A Duel In Which The Artist Cries Out In Terror Before He Is Defeated.
Artist
History
Dueling
Eternal Superiority Of The Dandy. What Is The Dandy?
Eternal
Dandy
Superiority
Life Is A Hospital In Which Every Patient Is Possessed By A Desire To Change His Bed.
Desire
Bed
Literature
Nothing In A Portrait Is A Matter Of Indifference. Gesture, Grimace, Clothing, Decor Even - All Must Combine To Realize A Character.
Character
Portraits
Portraiture
Our Squalid Society Rushed, Narcissus To A Man, To Gaze On Its Trivial Image On A Scrap Of Metal.
Men
Narcissus
Metals
I Have More Memories Than If I Were A Thousand Years Old.
Memories
Years
Thousand
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.
Life
Cities
Atmosphere
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
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
Beauty Is The Sole Ambition, The Exclusive Goal Of Taste.
Beauty
Ambition
Goal
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!
Brother
Progress
Enlightenment
Genius Is Nothing More Or Less Than Childhood Recovered By Will, A Childhood How Equipped For Self-expression With An Adult's Capacities.
Children
Self
Expression
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.
Dream
Reality
Fleeting
Alas! Man's Vices, Horrible As They Are Supposed To Be, Contain The Positive Proof Of His Taste For The Infinite.
Men
Vices
Taste
Everything For Me Becomes Allegory
Allegory
What Could Be More Simple And More Complex, More Obvious And More Profound Than A Portrait.
Simple
Profound
Portraits
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
Those Men Get Along Best With Women Who Can Get Along Best Without Them.
Men
Literature
It Is Regrettable That, Among The Rights Of Man, The Right Of Contradicting Oneself Has Been Forgotten.
Regret
Men
Rights
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
Amer Savoir, Celui Qu'on Tire Du Voyage! Bitter Is The Knowledge Gained In Travelling.
Voyages
Bitter
Tire
I Am A Cemetery By The Moon Unblessed.
Moon
Cemetery
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
For The Merchant, Even Honesty Is A Financial Speculation.
Honesty
Business
Financial
My Soul Travels On The Smell Of Perfume Like The Souls Of Other Men On Music.
Music
Travel
Men
In My Mind It Strolls, As Well As In My Apartment. A Cat, Strong, Sweet And Delightful.
Sweet
Strong
Cat
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
You Walk On Corpses, Beauty, Undismayed.
Walks
Corpses
The World Only Goes Round By Misunderstanding.
Understanding
World
Rounds
Drowsing, They Take The Noble Attitude Of A Great Sphinx, Who, In A Desert Land, Sleeps Always, Dreaming Dreams That Have No End.
Dream
Attitude
Sleep
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
One Can Only Forget About Time By Making Use Of It.
Inspirational
Time
Use
If The Word Doesn't Exist, Invent It; But First Be Sure It Doesn't Exist.
Firsts
Ifs
Music Fathoms The Sky.
Sky
Fathom
However Incoherent A Human Existence May Be, Human Unity Is Not Bothered By It.
Unity
May
Human Nature
There Is No Sweeter Pleasure Than To Surprise A Man By Giving Him More Than He Hopes For.
Men
Giving
Surprise
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
Where One Should See Only What Is Beautiful, Our Public Looks Only For What Is True.
Beauty
Beautiful
Looks
All The Visible Universe Is Nothing But A Shop Of Images And Signs.
Shops
Visible
Universe
Strangeness Is The Indispensable Condiment Of All Beauty.
Indispensable
Condiments
Strangeness
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
Who Would Dare Assign To Art The Sterile Function Of Imitating Nature?
Art
Literature
Imitating Others
He Who Looks Through An Open Window Sees Fewer Things Than He Who Looks Through A Closed Window.
Vision
Looks
Window
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
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
If Photography Is Allowed To Supplement Art In Some Of Its Functions, It Will Soon Have Supplanted Or Corrupted It Altogether, Thanks To The Stupidity Of The Multitude Which Is Its Natural Ally.
Photography
Art
Stupidity
Il Faut E Pater Le Bourgeois. One Must Astound The Bourgeois.
Bourgeois
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
La' , Tout N'est Qu'ordre Et Beaute , Luxe, Calme Et Volupte . There Where All Is Order And Beauty. Lush, Calm And Voluptuous.
Order
Calm
Voluptuous
By Nature, By Necessity Itself, [primitive Man] Is Encyclopedic, While Civilized Man Finds Himself Confined In The Infinitely Small Regions Of Specialization.
Knowledge
Men
Primitive Man
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
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.
Fashion
Mind
Desire
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
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
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.
Art
Cheer
Mind
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.
Summer
Fall
Autumn
It Would Perhaps Be Nice To Be Alternately The Victim And The Executioner.
Nice
Being Nice
Victim
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.
Pain
Unique
Hell
Hashish Will Be, Indeed, For The Impressions And Familiar Thoughts Of The Man, A Mirror Which Magnifies, Yet No More Than A Mirror.
Men
Mirrors
He Man
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
It Is Easy To Understand Why The Rabble Dislike Cats. A Cat Is Beautiful; It Suggests Ideas Of Luxury, Cleanliness, Voluptuous Pleasures.
Beautiful
Cat
Ideas
I Love Wagner, But The Music I Prefer Is That Of A Cat Hung Up By Its Tail Outside A Window And Trying To Stick To The Panes Of Glass With Its Claws.
Music
Cat
Glasses
Blessed Art Thou, Lord, Who Giveth Suffering As A Divine Remedy For Our Impurities.
Art
Blessed
Suffering
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
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.
Writing
Proud
Pox
This Life Is A Hospital Where Every Patient Is Possessed With The Desire To Change Beds; One Man Would Like To Suffer In Front Of The Stove, And Another Believes That He Would Recover His Health Beside The Window.
Believe
Men
Suffering
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.
Time
Mean
Night
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
Whether You Come From Heaven Or Hell, What Does It Matter, O Beauty!
Heaven
Doe
Matter
Multitude, Solitude: Equal And Interchangeable Terms For The Active And Prolific Poet.
Solitude
Crowds
Poet
To Be A Great Man And A Saint To Oneself, That's The Only Important Thing.
Men
Important
Saint
In This Horror Of Solitude, This Need To Lose His Ego In Exterior Flesh, Which Man Calls Grandly The Need For Love.
Love
Men
Poetry
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
There Can Be No Progress-real, Moral Prgress-except In The Individual And By The Individual Himself.
Art
Philosophy
Real
Even If It Were Proven That God Didn't Exist, Religion Would Still Be Saintly And Divine.
Divine
Stills
Ifs
No Task Is A Long One But The Task On Which One Dare Not Start. It Becomes A Nightmare.
Procrastination
Long
Tasks
A Work Of Art Should Be Like A Well-planned Crime.
Art
Crime
Should
Photographers, You Will Never Become Artists. All You Are Is Mere Copiers.
Artist
Photographer
Copiers
The World Progresses Only Through Misunderstanding.
Progress
World
Misunderstanding
The Insatiable Thirst For Everything That Lies Beyond, And That Life Reveals, Is The Most Living Proof Of Our Immortality.
Lying
Immortality
Proof
If Rape Or Arson, Poison Or The Knife Has Wove No Pleasing Patterns In The Stuff Of This Drab Canvas We Accept As Life - It Is Because We Are Not Bold Enough!
Knives
Poison
Arson
I Should Like The Fields Tinged With Red, The Rivers Yellow And The Trees Painted Blue. Nature Has No Imagination.
Rivers
Yellow
Blue
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
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
Nature Is A Word, An Allegory, A Mold, An Embossing, If You Will.
Mold
Allegory
Ifs
What Is Love? The Need Of Coming Out Of One's Self.
Love
Self
Needs
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
It Is At Despair At Not Being Able To Be Noble And Beautiful By Natural Means That We Have Made Up Our Faces So Strangely.
Beautiful
Mean
Despair
Unable To Do Away With Love, The Church Found A Way To Decontaminate It By Creating Marriage.
Love
Creating
Church
Life Swarms With Innocent Monsters.
Monsters
Innocent
Strange Phenomena
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
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
The Poet Enjoys The Incomparable Privilege Of Being Able To Be Himself And Others, As He Wishes.
Wish
Able
Privilege
Dancing Can Reveal All The Mystery That Music Conceals.
Dance
Ballet Class
Dancing
I Am Bored In France Because Everyone Resembles Voltaire.
Bored
France
Conformity
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.
Love Is
Men
Giving
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
The Immense Profundity Of Thought In Vulgar Locutions, Like Holes Dug By Generations Of Ants.
Ants
Generations
Holes
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
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
What Do I Care If You Are Good? Be Beautiful! And Be Sad!
Beautiful
Care
I Care
These Beings Have No Other Status, But That Of Cultivating The Idea Of Beauty In Their Own Persons, Of Satisfying Their Passions, Of Feeling And Thinking.... Contrary To What Many Thoughtless People Seem To Believe, Dandyism Is Not Even An Excessive Delight In Clothes And Material Elegance. For The Perfect Dandy, These Things Are No More Than The Symbol Of The Aristocratic Superiority Of His Mind.
Believe
Passion
Thinking
Even As A Child I Felt In My Heart Two Opposite Emotions: The Horror Of Life And The Ecstasy Of Life.
Children
Heart
Two
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
It Is The Pleasure Of Astonishing Others, And The Proud Satisfaction Of Never Being Astonished By Them.
Proud
Satisfaction
Pleasure
I Love The Clouds... The Clouds That Pass By... Over There... Over There... Those Lovely Clouds!
Love
Clouds
Lovely
A Silent Mouth Is Sweet To Hear.
Sweet
Mouths
Silent
A Book Is A Garden, A Party, A Company By The Way.
Party
Book
Garden
For Each Letter Received From A Creditor, Write Fifty Lines On An Extraterrestrial Subject And You Will Be Saved.
Writing
Literature
Fifty
To Dream Magnificently Is Not A Gift Given To All Men, And Even For Those Who Possess It, It Runs A Strong Risk Of Being Progressively Diminished By The Ever-growing Dissipation Of Modern Life And By The Restlessness Engendered By Material Progress. The Ability To Dream Is A Divine And Mysterious Ability; Because It Is Through Dreams That Man Communicates With The Shadowy World Which Surrounds Him. But This Power Needs Solitude To Develop Freely; The More One Concentrates, The More One Is Likely To Dream Fully, Deeply.
Running
Dream
Strong
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.
Inspirational
Weakness
Succeed
I Felt Passing Over Me The Wind Of The Wing Of Madness.
Wind
Wings
Madness
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
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.
Horror Genre
New Day
Devil
We Are All Born Marked For Evil.
Evil
Literature
Born
There Exist Only Three Beings Worthy Of Respect: The Priest, The Soldier, The Poet. To Know, To Kill, To Create.
Respect
Soldier
Three
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.
Men
Infinity
Vices
A Frenzied Passion For Art Is A Canker That Devours Everything Else.
Art
Passion
Art Is
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.
Beautiful
Childhood
Theatre
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
The People Adore Authority.
People
Authority
Adore
When It Meows, One Scarcely Hears It... It Has Not The Need Of Words To Speak The Lengthiest Phraseologies.
Cat
Needs
Speak
Etre Un Homme Utile M'a Paru Toujours Quelque Chose De Bien Hideux. To Be Useful Has Always Seemed To Me Quite Hideous.
Hideous
A Sweetheart Is A Bottle Of Wine, A Wife Is A Wine Bottle.
Funny
Cute
Marriage
Comme L'imagination A Cre E Le Monde, Elle Le Gouverne. Because Imagination Created The World, It Governs It.
Imagination
World
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
There Are Moments Of Existence When Time And Space Are More Profound, And The Awareness Of Existence Is Immensely Heightened.
Space
Profound
Moments
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
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
...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
The True Voyagers Are Those Who Go For The Sake Of Traveling . . . And Without Quite Knowing Why, They Say, 'let Us Depart!'.
Knowing
Sake
Immediate Work, Even Poor, Is Worth More Than Dreams.
Dream
Work
Poor
Progress, This Great Heresy Of Decay.
Progress
Decay
Literature
What A Mysterious Faculty Is That Queen Of The Faculties!
Queens
Imagination
Mysterious
My Heart Is Lost; The Beasts Have Eaten It.
Heart
Beast
My Heart
Nations, Like Families, Have Great Men Only In Spite Of Themselves.
Men
Like Family
Baudelaire
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
God Is The Only Being Who, In Order To Reign, Doesn't Even Need To Exist.
God
Order
Needs
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
Extract The Eternal From The Ephemeral.
Ephemeral
Eternal
The Poet Is Like The Prince Of The Clouds, Who Haunts The Tempest And Laughs At The Archer. Exiled On The Ground In The Midst Of The Jeering Crowd, His Giant's Wings Keep Him From Walking.
Archer
Clouds
Wings
There Are As Many Kinds Of Beauty As There Are Habitual Ways Of Seeking Happiness.
Happiness
Beauty
Way
Strangeness Is An Ingredient Necessary In Beauty.
Ingredients
Strangeness
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
And Over Your Unconsecrated Head You'll Hear The Howling Wolves Lament Their Fate And Yours The Livelong Year.
Fate
Years
Lament
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.
Inspire
Desire
Conquer
Always Be Drunk ... Get Drunk Militantly. Just Get Drunk.
Drunk
Alcohol
Funny Alcohol
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
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.
Heart
Giving
Body
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