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In Our Corruption We Perceive Beauties Unrevealed To Ancient Times.
-Charles Baudelaire
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In Our Corruption We

Charles Baudelaire
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In Our Corruption We Perceive Beauties Unrevealed To Ancient Times.

Understanding the Quote: "in our corruption we perceive beauties unrevealed to ancient times...."

This quote by Charles Baudelaire reflects deeply on the theme of ancient. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Ancient, Corruption, Ancient Times, 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 ancient and corruption. 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
Ancient
Corruption
Ancient Times
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Inspiration Comes Of Working Every Day.
Inspiration
Imagination
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
Nothing Can Be Done Except Little By Little.
Perseverance
Done
Literature
Dancing Is Poetry With Arms And Legs.
Dance
Dancing
Ballet
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
Beauty Is The Sole Ambition, The Exclusive Goal Of Taste.
Beauty
Ambition
Goal
Romanticism Is Precisely Situated Neither In Choice Of Subject, Nor Exact Truth, But In The Way Of Feeling.
Choices
Feelings
Way
Drink Wine, Drink Poetry, Drink Virtue.
Wine
Drink
Virtue
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
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
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
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
My Soul Travels On The Smell Of Perfume Like The Souls Of Other Men On Music.
Music
Travel
Men
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
It Would Be Difficult For Me Not To Conclude That The Most Perfect Type Of Masculine Beauty Is Satan, As Portrayed By Milton.
Perfect
Would Be
Satanic
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's The Devil Who Pulls The Strings That Make Us Dance
Devil
Strings
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
I Have Cultivated My Hysteria With Pleasure And Terror.
Hysteria
Pleasure
Terror
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
And Over Your Unconsecrated Head You'll Hear The Howling Wolves Lament Their Fate And Yours The Livelong Year.
Fate
Years
Lament
Evil Is Committed Without Effort, Naturally, Fatally; Goodness Is Always The Product Of Some Art.
Art
Evil
Effort
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
So As Not To Feel The Horrible Burden Of Time That Breaks Your Back And Bends You To The Earth, Be Endlessly Drunk.
Drunk
Earth
Break
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
Genius Is Nothing More Nor Less Than Childhood Recaptured At Will.
Childhood
Inspire
Genius
Through The Unknown, We'll Find The New
There Is No Sweeter Pleasure Than To Surprise A Man By Giving Him More Than He Hopes For.
Men
Giving
Surprise
A Frenzied Passion For Art Is A Canker That Devours Everything Else.
Art
Passion
Art Is
I Felt Passing Over Me The Wind Of The Wing Of Madness.
Wind
Wings
Madness
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
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
When It Meows, One Scarcely Hears It... It Has Not The Need Of Words To Speak The Lengthiest Phraseologies.
Cat
Needs
Speak
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
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
All The Visible Universe Is Nothing But A Shop Of Images And Signs.
Shops
Visible
Universe
Finer Than Any Sand Are Dusts Of Gold That Gleam, Vague Starpoints, In The Mystic Iris Of Their Eyes.
Cat
Eye
Dust
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
The Priest Is An Immense Being Because He Makes The Crowd Believe Astonishing Things.
Believe
Literature
Crowds
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
There Are As Many Kinds Of Beauty As There Are Habitual Ways Of Seeking Happiness.
Happiness
Beauty
Way
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
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Age
Color... Thinks By Itself, Independently Of The Object It Clothes.
Thinking
Color
Clothes
The Idea Of Beauty Which Man Creates For Himself Imprints Itself On His Whole Attire, Crumples Or Stiffens His Dress, Rounds Off Or Squares His Gesture, And In The Long Run Even Ends By Subtly Penetrating The Very Features Of His Face. Man Ends By Looking Like His Ideal Self. These Engravings Can Be Translated Either Into Beauty Or Ugliness; In One Direction, They Become Caricatures, In The Other, Antique Statues.
Running
Men
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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
The World Progresses Only Through Misunderstanding.
Progress
World
Misunderstanding
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
The Dandy Should Aspire To Be Uninterruptedly Sublime. He Should Live And Sleep In Front Of A Mirror.
Sleep
Mirrors
Sublime
Dancing Can Reveal All The Mystery That Music Conceals.
Dance
Ballet Class
Dancing
To The Solemn Graves, Near A Lonely Cemetery, My Heart Like A Muffled Drum Is Beating Funeral Marches.
Life
Lonely
Heart
Strangeness Is The Indispensable Condiment Of All Beauty.
Indispensable
Condiments
Strangeness
However Incoherent A Human Existence May Be, Human Unity Is Not Bothered By It.
Unity
May
Human Nature
Being A Useful Man Has Always Seemed To Me To Be Something Truly Hideous.
Men
Hideous
Idleness
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
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
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
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Void
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
To Be A Great Man And A Saint To Oneself, That's The Only Important Thing.
Men
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Saint
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
Fate
Winter
Bored
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.
Confused
Men
Temples
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
The World Only Goes Round By Misunderstanding.
Understanding
World
Rounds
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
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.
Unique
Evil
Pleasure
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
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
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Criticism
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
As A Remedy Against All Ills - Poverty, Sickness, And Melancholy - Only One Thing Is Absolutely Necessary: A Liking For Work
Poverty
Sickness
Melancholy
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
There Are Some Temptations Which Are So Strong That They Must Be Virtues.
Strong
Temptation
Virtue
Happy Is The Man Who Can With Vigorous Wing Mount To Those Luminous Serene Fields! The Man Whose Thoughts, Like Larks, Take Liberated Flight Toward The Morning Skies --who Hovers Over Life And Understands Without Effort The Language Of Flowers And Voiceless Things!
Morning
Flower
Men
Etre Un Homme Utile M'a Paru Toujours Quelque Chose De Bien Hideux. To Be Useful Has Always Seemed To Me Quite Hideous.
Hideous
What Is Love? The Need Of Coming Out Of One's Self.
Love
Self
Needs
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 Old Paris Is No More (the Form Of A City Changes Faster, Alas! Than A Mortal's Heart).
Heart
Cities
Paris
Nations, Like Families, Have Great Men Only In Spite Of Themselves.
Men
Like Family
Baudelaire
On The Vaporization And The Centralization Of The Self. All Is There.
Self
Centralization
Pure Draughtsmen Are Philosophers And Dialecticians. Colourists Are Epic Poets.
Epic
Philosopher
Poet
Any Man Who Does Not Accept The Conditions Of Life Sells His Soul.
Life
Men
History
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
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
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
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
Who Would Dare Assign To Art The Sterile Function Of Imitating Nature?
Art
Literature
Imitating Others
An Oasis Of Horror In A Desert Of Boredom.
Oasis
Boredom
Desert
Remembering Is Only A New Form Of Suffering.
Suffering
Remember
Form
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
The Beautiful Is Always Bizarre.
Beautiful
Art
Creativity
It Is Regrettable That, Among The Rights Of Man, The Right Of Contradicting Oneself Has Been Forgotten.
Regret
Men
Rights
Today I Had A Strange Warning. I Felt The Wind Of Insanity Brush My Mind.
Wind
Insanity
Mind
Every Healthy Man Can Do Without Food For Two Days — But Without Poetry, Never!
Food
Men
Two
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
Multitude, Solitude: Equal And Interchangeable Terms For The Active And Prolific Poet.
Solitude
Crowds
Poet
From Satan Or From God, What Matter? Angel Or Siren, What Matter, If You Make - Fairy With Velvet Eyes, Rhythm, Perfume, Light, O My Only Queen - The Universe Less Hideous, Each Moment Less Strained?
Queens
Eye
Angel
What Can An Eternity Of Damnation Matter To Someone Who Has Felt, If Only For A Second, The Infinity Of Delight?
Damnation
Delight
Matter
Genius Is Simply Childhood, Rediscovered By An Act Of Will.
Childhood
Genius
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.
Fashion
Two
Mind
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.
Beautiful
Ideas
Water
You Walk On Corpses, Beauty, Undismayed.
Walks
Corpses
The True Voyagers Are Those Who Go For The Sake Of Traveling . . . And Without Quite Knowing Why, They Say, 'let Us Depart!'.
Knowing
Sake
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
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
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
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
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
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
Blessed Art Thou, Lord, Who Giveth Suffering As A Divine Remedy For Our Impurities.
Art
Blessed
Suffering
Photographers, You Will Never Become Artists. All You Are Is Mere Copiers.
Artist
Photographer
Copiers
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
The More Delicate And Ambitious The Soul, The Further Do Dreams Estrange It From Possible Things.
Dream
Soul
Ambitious
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
God Is The Only Being Who, In Order To Reign, Doesn't Even Need To Exist.
God
Order
Needs
A Study Of The Great Malady; Horror Of Home.
Home
Study
Horror
Anybody, Providing He Knows How To Be Amusing, Has The Right To Talk About Himself.
Literature
Amusing
Know How
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
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
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
For Each Letter Received From A Creditor, Write Fifty Lines On An Extraterrestrial Subject And You Will Be Saved.
Writing
Literature
Fifty
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
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.
Dream
Baby
Doe
Cats, So Strong And Gentle, The Pride Of The Household.
Strong
Cat
Pride
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.
Mediocrity
Reign
Becoming
I Throw Fresh Seeds Out. Who Knows What Survives?
Seeds
Knows
Poetry Has No Goal Other Than Itself; It Can Have No Other, And No Poem Will Be So Great, So Noble, So Truly Worthy Of The Name Of Poem, Than One Written Uniquely For The Pleasure Of Writing A Poem.
Writing
Names
Goal
I Lived For A Long Time Under Vast Porticos That Maritime Suns Tinted With A Thousand Fires, And Whose Great Pillars, Straight And Majestuous In The Evening Made Seem Like Basaltic Caves.
Fire
Long
Pillars
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
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.
Needs
Divine
Stills
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
All Good And Genuine Draftsmen Draw According To The Picture Inscribed In Their Minds, And Not According To Nature.
Drawing
Mind
Genuine
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
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!
Heart
Light
Knowing
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
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
Life Swarms With Innocent Monsters.
Monsters
Innocent
Strange Phenomena
Nations, Like Families, Have Great Men Only In Spite Of Themselves. They Do Everything In Their Power Not To Have Any. And Therefore, The Great Man, In Order To Exist, Must Possess A Force Of Attack Which Is Greater Than The Force Of Resistance Developed By Millions Of People.
Men
Greatness
Order
In Putting Off What One Has To Do, One Runs The Risk Of Never Being Able To Do It.
Running
Procrastination
Risk
In Philosophical Inquiry, The Human Spirit, Imitating The Movement Of The Stars, Must Follow A Curve Which Brings It Back To Its Point Of Departure. To Conclude Is To Close A Circle.
Stars
Philosophical
Thinking
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
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
There Can Be No Progress-real, Moral Prgress-except In The Individual And By The Individual Himself.
Art
Philosophy
Real
And, Drunk With My Own Madness, I Shouted At Him Furiously, "make Life Beautiful! Make Life Beautiful!
Beautiful
Drunk
Madness
In Our Corruption We Perceive Beauties Unrevealed To Ancient Times.
Ancient
Corruption
Ancient Times
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
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
The Act Of Love Strongly Resembles Torture Or Surgery.
Love
Acts Of Love
Torture
Even If It Were Proven That God Didn't Exist, Religion Would Still Be Saintly And Divine.
Divine
Stills
Ifs
Strangeness Is A Necessary Ingredient In Beauty.
Ingredients
Strangeness
Genius Is Childhood Recalled At Will.
Childhood
Genius
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
Unable To Do Away With Love, The Church Found A Way To Decontaminate It By Creating Marriage.
Love
Creating
Church
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
The Taste For Pleasure Attaches Us To The Present. The Concern With Our Salvation Leaves Us Hanging On The Future.
Hanging On
Taste
Pleasure
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
Common Sense Tells Us That The Things Of The Earth Exist Only A Little, And That True Reality Is Only In Dreams.
Dream
Reality
Common Sense
One Can Only Forget About Time By Making Use Of It.
Inspirational
Time
Use
Extract The Eternal From The Ephemeral.
Ephemeral
Eternal
Wine Transforms Moles Into Eagles.
Wine
Eagles
Moles
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
The Devil's Finest Trick Is To Persuade You That He Does Not Exist.
Life
Devil
Doe
Always Be Drunk ... Get Drunk Militantly. Just Get Drunk.
Drunk
Alcohol
Funny Alcohol
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
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
Evil Comes Up Softly Like A Flower.
Flower
Evil
Come Up
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
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
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
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
I Am A Cemetery By The Moon Unblessed.
Moon
Cemetery
Dance Can Reveal Everything Mysterious That Is Hidden In Music
Dancing
Merit
Mysterious
There Is No Such Thing As A Long Piece Of Work, Except One That You Dare Not Start.
Inspiration
Long
Innovation
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
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
A Child Sees Everything In A Sense Of Newness - He Is Always Drunk. Genius Is Nothing But Childhood Re-attained At Will.
Children
Drunk
Childhood
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
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
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
Progress, This Great Heresy Of Decay.
Progress
Decay
Literature
In Literature As In Ethics, There Is Danger, As Well As Glory, In Being Subtle. Aristocracy Isolates Us.
Aristocracy
Literature
Ethics
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
Nature... Is Nothing But The Inner Voice Of Self-interest.
Nature
Self
Voice
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
If The Poet Has Pursued A Moral Objective, He Has Diminished His Poetic Force.
Objectivity
Literature
Moral
He Who Looks Through An Open Window Sees Fewer Things Than He Who Looks Through A Closed Window.
Vision
Looks
Window
Life Is A Hospital In Which Every Patient Is Possessed By A Desire To Change His Bed.
Desire
Bed
Literature
Everything That Is Beautiful And Noble Is The Product Of Reason And Calculation.
Beautiful
Math
Noble
Nature Is A Temple, Where The Living Columns Sometimes Breathe Confusing Speech; Man Walks Within These Groves Of Symbols, Each Of Which Regards Him As A Kindred Thing.
Men
Confusing
Speech
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 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
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
What Do I Care If You Are Good? Be Beautiful! And Be Sad!
Beautiful
Care
I Care
A Book Is A Garden, An Orchard, A Storehouse, A Party, A Company By The Way, A Counselor, A Multitude Of Counselors.
War
Party
Book
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.
Lying
Men
Vices
There Are But Three Beings Worthy Of Respect: The Priest, The Warrior And The Poet. To Know, To Kill And To Create. The Rest Of Mankind May Be Taxed And Drudged, They Are Born For The Stable, That Is To Say, To Practise What They Call Professions.
Warrior
Three
May
I Am A Cemetery Abhorred By The Moon, In Which Long Worms Crawl Like Remorse.
Moon
Long
Worms
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
Love Is The Natural Occupation Of The Man Of Leisure.
Love
Men
Occupation
What I Say Is That The Supreme And Singular Joy Of Making Love Resides In The Certainty Of Doing Evil.
Love
Evil
Joy
Passion I Hate, And Spirit Does Me Wrong. Let Us Love Gently.
Hate
Passion
Doe
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
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