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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.

-Charles Baudelaire

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Relate Comic Things In

Charles Baudelaire

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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.

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A Multitude Of Small Delights Constitute Happiness

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.

Discover Day To Day Excitement.

Inspiration Comes Of Working Every Day.

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.

By Nature, By Necessity Itself, [primitive Man] Is Encyclopedic, While Civilized Man Finds Himself Confined In The Infinitely Small Regions Of Specialization.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Music Fathoms The Sky.

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.

J'ai Plus De Souvenirs Que Si J'avais Mille Ans. Ihavemorememoriesthanifiwereonethousandyearsold.

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

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.

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

Today I Felt Pass Over Me A Breath Of Wind From The Wings Of Madness.

Beauty Is The Sole Ambition, The Exclusive Goal Of Taste.

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

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.

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.

Progress, This Great Heresy Of Decay.

Dancing Can Reveal All The Mystery That Music Conceals.

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

A Sweetheart Is A Bottle Of Wine, A Wife Is A Wine Bottle.

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.

To The Solemn Graves, Near A Lonely Cemetery, My Heart Like A Muffled Drum Is Beating Funeral Marches.

I Can Barely Conceive Of A Type Of Beauty In Which There Is No Melancholy.

Even In The Centuries Which Appear To Us To Be The Most Monstrous And Foolish, The Immortal Appetite For Beauty Has Always Found Satisfaction.

Always Be Drunk ... Get Drunk Militantly. Just Get Drunk.

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.

It Is The Pleasure Of Astonishing Others, And The Proud Satisfaction Of Never Being Astonished By Them.

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

The People Adore Authority.

The Form Of A Town Changes More Swiftly Alas! Than The Heart Of A Mortal.

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!

It Is Necessary To Work, If Not From Inclination, At Least From Despair. Everything Considered, Work Is Less Boring Than Amusing Oneself.

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

Amer Savoir, Celui Qu'on Tire Du Voyage! Bitter Is The Knowledge Gained In Travelling.

For The Merchant, Even Honesty Is A Financial Speculation.

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.

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.

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.

In Literature As In Ethics, There Is Danger, As Well As Glory, In Being Subtle. Aristocracy Isolates Us.

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

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.

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.

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

We Revel In The Laxness Of The Path We Take.

...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.

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

A Silent Mouth Is Sweet To Hear.

Sexuality Is The Lyricism Of The Masses.

A Child Sees Everything In A Sense Of Newness - He Is Always Drunk. Genius Is Nothing But Childhood Re-attained At Will.

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.

What Is Exhilarating In Bad Taste Is The Aristocratic Pleasure Of Giving Offense.

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.

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.

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

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.

Quand Notre Coeur A Fait Une Fois Sa Vendange, Vivre Est Un Mal. Once Our Heart Has Been Harvested Once, Life Becomes Miserable.

The Beautiful Is Always Bizarre.

Delacroix Was Passionately In Love With Passion, But Coldly Determined To Express Passion As Clearly As Possible.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

What Is Irritating About Love Is That It Is A Crime That Requires An Accomplice.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The World Only Goes Round By Misunderstanding.

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

I Am Unable To Understand How A Man Of Honor Could Take A Newspaper In His Hands Without A Shudder Of Disgust.

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!

Hypocrite Reader My Fellow My Brother!

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

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.

Go Then, A Starveling Girl With No Perfume Or Pearls, Only Your Nudity O My Beauty!

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.

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.

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.

Genius Is Childhood Recalled At Will.

A Dandy Does Nothing.

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

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.

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.

We Love Women In Proportion To Their Degree Of Strangeness To Us.

A Book Is A Garden, An Orchard, A Storehouse, A Party, A Company By The Way, A Counselor, A Multitude Of Counselors.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

What Could Be More Simple And More Complex, More Obvious And More Profound Than A Portrait.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

Photographers, You Will Never Become Artists. All You Are Is Mere Copiers.

Extract The Eternal From The Ephemeral.

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

Nearly All Our Originality Comes From The Stamp That Time Impresses Upon Our Sensibility.

Funny Basketball

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.

Let Us Beware Of Common Folk, Of Common Sense, Of Sentiment, Of Inspiration, And Of The Obvious.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Immense Profundity Of Thought In Vulgar Locutions, Like Holes Dug By Generations Of Ants.

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.

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

Nature... Is Nothing But The Inner Voice Of Self-interest.

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

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.

I Am A Cemetery By The Moon Unblessed.

Perfumes, Colours And Sounds Echo One Another.

Immediate Work, Even Poor, Is Worth More Than Dreams.

Remembering Is Only A New Form Of Suffering.

Drink Wine, Drink Poetry, Drink Virtue.

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.

Two Fundamental Literary Qualities: Supernaturalism And Irony.

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.

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.

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

To Be A Great Man And A Saint To Oneself, That's The Only Important Thing.

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.

What A Mysterious Faculty Is That Queen Of The Faculties!

Genius Is Nothing More Or Less Than Childhood Recovered By Will, A Childhood How Equipped For Self-expression With An Adult's Capacities.

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

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.

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.

The More Delicate And Ambitious The Soul, The Further Do Dreams Estrange It From Possible Things.

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.

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

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.

Always Be A Poet, Even In Prose.

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.

Even As A Child I Felt In My Heart Two Opposite Emotions: The Horror Of Life And The Ecstasy Of Life.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Modernity Is The Transient, The Fleeting, The Contingent; It Is One Half Of Art, The Other Being The Eternal And The Immovable.

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

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.

We All Have The Republican Spirit In Our Veins, Like Syphilis In Our Bones. We Are Democratized And Venerealized.

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.

In Our Corruption We Perceive Beauties Unrevealed To Ancient Times.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

He Who Looks Through An Open Window Sees Fewer Things Than He Who Looks Through A Closed Window.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

So As Not To Feel The Horrible Burden Of Time That Breaks Your Back And Bends You To The Earth, Be Endlessly Drunk.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

James L. Buckley

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