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

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

Understanding the Quote: "what is love? the need of coming out of one's self...."

This quote by Charles Baudelaire reflects deeply on the theme of love. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Love, Self, Needs, 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 love and self. 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
Love
Self
Needs
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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
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Evil Is Committed Without Effort, Naturally, Fatally; Goodness Is Always The Product Of Some Art.
Art
Evil
Effort
There Can Be No Progress-real, Moral Prgress-except In The Individual And By The Individual Himself.
Art
Philosophy
Real
With Wine, Poetry, Or Virtue As You Choose. But Get Drunk.
Wine
Drunk
Virtue
Beauty Is The Sole Ambition, The Exclusive Goal Of Taste.
Beauty
Ambition
Goal
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
The Man Who Says His Evening Prayer Is A Captain Posting His Sentinels. He Can Sleep.
Prayer
Sleep
Men
Nature Is A Word, An Allegory, A Mold, An Embossing, If You Will.
Mold
Allegory
Ifs
What Do I Care If You Are Good? Be Beautiful! And Be Sad!
Beautiful
Care
I Care
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
Perfumes, Colours And Sounds Echo One Another.
Echoes
Sound
Perfume
The World Progresses Only Through Misunderstanding.
Progress
World
Misunderstanding
Evil Comes Up Softly Like A Flower.
Flower
Evil
Come Up
We Are All Born Marked For Evil.
Evil
Literature
Born
Whether You Come From Heaven Or Hell, What Does It Matter, O Beauty!
Heaven
Doe
Matter
Common Sense Tells Us That The Things Of The Earth Exist Only A Little, And That True Reality Is Only In Dreams.
Dream
Reality
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Modernity Is The Transitory, The Fugitive, The Contingent, Which Make Up One Half Of Art, The Other Being The Eternal And The Immutable. This Transitory Fugitive Element, Which Is Constantly Changing, Must Not Be Despised Or Neglected.
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Half
Strangeness Is A Necessary Ingredient In Beauty.
Ingredients
Strangeness
Multitude, Solitude: Equal And Interchangeable Terms For The Active And Prolific Poet.
Solitude
Crowds
Poet
And, Drunk With My Own Madness, I Shouted At Him Furiously, "make Life Beautiful! Make Life Beautiful!
Beautiful
Drunk
Madness
On The Vaporization And The Centralization Of The Self. All Is There.
Self
Centralization
Ne Cherchez Plus Mon Coeur; Les Be" Tes L'ont Mange . Don't Search Any Further For My Heart; Wild Beasts Ate It.
Heart
Beast
Plus
I Am A Cemetery By The Moon Unblessed.
Moon
Cemetery
Poetry And Progress Are Like Two Ambitious Men Who Hate One Another With An Instinctive Hatred, And When They Meet Upon The Same Road, One Of Them Has To Give Place.
Hate
Men
Two
Nature... Is Nothing But The Inner Voice Of Self-interest.
Nature
Self
Voice
To Handle A Language Skillfully Is To Practice A Kind Of Evocative Sorcery.
Practice
Sorcery
Language
My Soul Travels On The Smell Of Perfume Like The Souls Of Other Men On Music.
Music
Travel
Men
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
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.
Happiness
Humble
Pride
Blessed Art Thou, Lord, Who Giveth Suffering As A Divine Remedy For Our Impurities.
Art
Blessed
Suffering
The Unique And Supreme Voluptuousness Of Love Lies In The Certainty Of Committing Evil. And Men And Women Know From Birth That In Evil Is Found All Sensual Delight.
Lying
Unique
Men
An Artist Is An Artist Only Because Of His Exquisite Sense Of Beauty, A Sense Which Shows Him Intoxicating Pleasures, But Which At The Same Time Implies And Contains An Equally Exquisite Sense Of All Deformities And All Disproportion.
Artist
Pleasure
Deformity
It Is The Pleasure Of Astonishing Others, And The Proud Satisfaction Of Never Being Astonished By Them.
Proud
Satisfaction
Pleasure
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.
Inspirational
Dance
Dancing
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
In Putting Off What One Has To Do, One Runs The Risk Of Never Being Able To Do It.
Running
Procrastination
Risk
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
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
Progress, This Great Heresy Of Decay.
Progress
Decay
Literature
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
Strangeness Is An Ingredient Necessary In Beauty.
Ingredients
Strangeness
Il Faut Travailler Sinon Par Go U" T, Au Moins Par De Sespoir, Puisque, Tout Bien Ve Rifie , Travailler Est Moins Ennuyeux Que S'amuser. We Should Work: If Not By Preference, At Least Out Of Despair. All Things Considered, Work Is Less Boring Than Amusement.
Despair
Amusement
Boring
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
The Dandy Should Aspire To Be Uninterruptedly Sublime. He Should Live And Sleep In Front Of A Mirror.
Sleep
Mirrors
Sublime
If The Word Doesn't Exist, Invent It; But First Be Sure It Doesn't Exist.
Firsts
Ifs
We Revel In The Laxness Of The Path We Take.
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J'ai Plus De Souvenirs Que Si J'avais Mille Ans. Ihavemorememoriesthanifiwereonethousandyearsold.
Souvenirs
Plus
The Taste For Pleasure Attaches Us To The Present. The Concern With Our Salvation Leaves Us Hanging On The Future.
Hanging On
Taste
Pleasure
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
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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
It's The Devil Who Pulls The Strings That Make Us Dance
Devil
Strings
There Is No More Steely Barb Than That Of The Infinite.
Literature
Infinity
Infinite
Photographers, You Will Never Become Artists. All You Are Is Mere Copiers.
Artist
Photographer
Copiers
There Are As Many Kinds Of Beauty As There Are Habitual Ways Of Seeking Happiness.
Happiness
Beauty
Way
I Think I Would Be Happy In That Place I Happen Not To Be, And This Question Of Moving House Is The Subject Of A Perpetual Dialogue I Have With My Soul.
Moving
Thinking
House
Extract The Eternal From The Ephemeral.
Ephemeral
Eternal
But A Dandy Can Never Be A Vulgar Man
Men
Vulgar
Dandy
It Is The Greatest Art Of The Devil To Convince Us He Does Not Exist.
Art
Convince Us
Evil
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
...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 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
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
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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
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
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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.
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Pleasure
Richness
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.
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Causes
Glimpse
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
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
Everything That Is Beautiful And Noble Is The Product Of Reason And Calculation.
Beautiful
Math
Noble
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
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
To Be A Great Man And A Saint To Oneself, That's The Only Important Thing.
Men
Important
Saint
A Man Who Drinks Only Water Has A Secret To Hide From His Fellow Men.
Men
Water
Secret
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.
Crush
Beer
Earth
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
A Dandy Does Nothing.
Doe
Dandy
Idleness
This Industry [photography], By Invading The Territories Of Art, Has Become Art's Most Mortal Enemy.
Photography
Art
Enemy
Strangeness Is The Indispensable Condiment Of All Beauty.
Indispensable
Condiments
Strangeness
The Artist Is Today And Has Been For Many Years, Despite His Absence Of Merit, Simply A Spoiled Child. So Many Honors, So Much Money Bestowed On Men Without Souls And Without Education.
Education
Art
Children
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
A Study Of The Great Malady; Horror Of Home.
Home
Study
Horror
Finer Than Any Sand Are Dusts Of Gold That Gleam, Vague Starpoints, In The Mystic Iris Of Their Eyes.
Cat
Eye
Dust
Love Is A Taste For Prostitution. In Fact, There Is No Noble Pleasure That Cannot Be Reduced To Prostitution.
Love
Noble
Taste
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
Within The Bottle's Depths, The Wine's Soul Sang One Night. Drink Wine, Drink Poetry, Drink Virtue.
Wine
Night
Soul
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
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
The Idea Which Man Forms Of Beauty Imprints Itself Throughout His Attire, Rumples Or Stiffens His Garments, Rounds Off Or Aligns His Gestures, And, Finally, Even Subtly Penetrates The Features Of His Face.
Beauty
Fashion
Men
To The Solemn Graves, Near A Lonely Cemetery, My Heart Like A Muffled Drum Is Beating Funeral Marches.
Life
Lonely
Heart
Life Swarms With Innocent Monsters.
Monsters
Innocent
Strange Phenomena
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
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
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
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
Alas! Man's Vices, Horrible As They Are Supposed To Be, Contain The Positive Proof Of His Taste For The Infinite.
Men
Vices
Taste
Two Fundamental Literary Qualities: Supernaturalism And Irony.
Two
Quality
Fundamentals
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
Nearly All Our Originality Comes From The Stamp That Time Impresses Upon Our Sensibility.
Time
Funny Basketball
Originality
The Form Of A Town Changes More Swiftly Alas! Than The Heart Of A Mortal.
Heart
History
Towns
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
Music Fathoms The Sky.
Sky
Fathom
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
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
And Over Your Unconsecrated Head You'll Hear The Howling Wolves Lament Their Fate And Yours The Livelong Year.
Fate
Years
Lament
For The Merchant, Even Honesty Is A Financial Speculation.
Honesty
Business
Financial
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
Life Is A Hospital In Which Every Patient Is Possessed By A Desire To Change His Bed.
Desire
Bed
Literature
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
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
My Heart Is Lost; The Beasts Have Eaten It.
Heart
Beast
My Heart
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
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
Even As A Child I Felt In My Heart Two Opposite Emotions: The Horror Of Life And The Ecstasy Of Life.
Children
Heart
Two
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
What Could Be More Simple And More Complex, More Obvious And More Profound Than A Portrait.
Simple
Profound
Portraits
Genius Is Childhood Recalled At Will.
Childhood
Genius
...an Industry Which Can Furnish Results Identical To Nature Must Be The Absolute In Art.
Art
Results
Identical
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
An Oasis Of Horror In A Desert Of Boredom.
Oasis
Boredom
Desert
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
There Are In Every Man, Always, Two Simultaneous Allegiances, One To God, The Other To Satan. Invocation Of God, Or Spirituality, Is A Desire To Climb Higher; That Of Satan, Or Animality, Is Delight In Descent.
God
Men
Two
Everything, Alas, Is An Abyss, — Actions, Desires, Dreams, Words!
Dream
Desire
Action
Comme L'imagination A Cre E Le Monde, Elle Le Gouverne. Because Imagination Created The World, It Governs It.
Imagination
World
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
Anybody, Providing He Knows How To Be Amusing, Has The Right To Talk About Himself.
Literature
Amusing
Know How
In Literature As In Ethics, There Is Danger, As Well As Glory, In Being Subtle. Aristocracy Isolates Us.
Aristocracy
Literature
Ethics
There Are Some Temptations Which Are So Strong That They Must Be Virtues.
Strong
Temptation
Virtue
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
I Love The Clouds... The Clouds That Pass By... Over There... Over There... Those Lovely Clouds!
Love
Clouds
Lovely
Wine Transforms Moles Into Eagles.
Wine
Eagles
Moles
Nothing In A Portrait Is A Matter Of Indifference. Gesture, Grimace, Clothing, Decor Even - All Must Combine To Realize A Character.
Character
Portraits
Portraiture
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
For Me, Romanticism Is The Most Recent And The Most Current Expression Of Beauty.
Beauty
Expression
Currents
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.
Strong
Cat
Pride
What Can An Eternity Of Damnation Matter To Someone Who Has Felt, If Only For A Second, The Infinity Of Delight?
Damnation
Delight
Matter
The Being Who, For Most Men, Is The Source Of The Most Lively, And Even, Be It Said, To The Shame Of Philosophical Delights, The Most Lasting Joys; The Being Towards Or For Whom All Their Efforts Tend For Whom And By Whom Fortunes Are Made And Lost; For Whom, But Especially By Whom, Artists And Poets Compose Their Most Delicate Jewels; From Whom Flow The Most Enervating Pleasures And The Most Enriching Sufferings - Woman, In A Word, Is Not, For The Artist In General... Only The Female Of The Human Species. She Is Rather A Divinity, A Star.
Stars
Women
Philosophical
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
You Walk On Corpses, Beauty, Undismayed.
Walks
Corpses
As A Remedy Against All Ills - Poverty, Sickness, And Melancholy - Only One Thing Is Absolutely Necessary: A Liking For Work
Poverty
Sickness
Melancholy
Imagination Is An Almost Divine Faculty Which, Without Recourse To Any Philosophical Method, Immediately Perceives Everything: The Secret And Intimate Connections Between Things, Correspondences And Analogies.
Art
Philosophical
Imagination
The Immense Profundity Of Thought In Vulgar Locutions, Like Holes Dug By Generations Of Ants.
Ants
Generations
Holes
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
Those Men Get Along Best With Women Who Can Get Along Best Without Them.
Men
Literature
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
Theory Of The True Civilization. It Is Not To Be Found In Gas Or Steam Or Table Turning. It Consists In The Diminution Of The Traces Of Original Sin.
Civilization
Tables
Sin
Evil Is Done Without Effort, Naturally, It's Destiny; Good Is Always The Product Of Skill.
Art
Destiny
Evil
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
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
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
Drink Wine, Drink Poetry, Drink Virtue.
Wine
Drink
Virtue
We Love Women In Proportion To Their Degree Of Strangeness To Us.
Women
Degrees
Proportion
I Throw Fresh Seeds Out. Who Knows What Survives?
Seeds
Knows
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
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
A Work Of Art Should Be Like A Well-planned Crime.
Art
Crime
Should
Even When She Walks One Would Believe That She Dances.
Dance
Believe
Ballet
Unable To Do Away With Love, The Church Found A Way To Decontaminate It By Creating Marriage.
Love
Creating
Church
Inspiration Comes Of Working Every Day.
Inspiration
Imagination
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
Who Would Dare Assign To Art The Sterile Function Of Imitating Nature?
Art
Literature
Imitating Others
On The Day When A Young Writer Corrects His First Proof-sheet He Is As Proud As A Schoolboy Who Has Just Got His First Dose Of Pox.
Writing
Proud
Pox
What I Say Is That The Supreme And Singular Joy Of Making Love Resides In The Certainty Of Doing Evil.
Love
Evil
Joy
I Set Out To Discover The Why Of It, And To Transform My Pleasure Into Knowledge.
Pleasure
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
No Task Is A Long One But The Task On Which One Dare Not Start. It Becomes A Nightmare.
Procrastination
Long
Tasks
What Is Love? The Need Of Coming Out Of One's Self.
Love
Self
Needs
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 Immense Appetite We Have For Biography Comes From A Deep-seated Sense Of Equality.
Biographies
Appetite
Immense
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
There Is No Such Thing As A Long Piece Of Work, Except One That You Dare Not Start.
Inspiration
Long
Innovation
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
Romanticism Is Precisely Situated Neither In Choice Of Subject, Nor Exact Truth, But In The Way Of Feeling.
Choices
Feelings
Way
Sexuality Is The Lyricism Of The Masses.
Literature
Adultery
Sexuality
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
Today I Felt Pass Over Me A Breath Of Wind From The Wings Of Madness.
Wind
Wings
Insanity
Etre Un Homme Utile M'a Paru Toujours Quelque Chose De Bien Hideux. To Be Useful Has Always Seemed To Me Quite Hideous.
Hideous
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
The World Only Goes Round By Misunderstanding.
Understanding
World
Rounds
A Silent Mouth Is Sweet To Hear.
Sweet
Mouths
Silent
In Our Corruption We Perceive Beauties Unrevealed To Ancient Times.
Ancient
Corruption
Ancient Times
I Have More Memories Than If I Were A Thousand Years Old.
Memories
Years
Thousand
The Act Of Love Strongly Resembles Torture Or Surgery.
Love
Acts Of Love
Torture
He Who Looks Through An Open Window Sees Fewer Things Than He Who Looks Through A Closed Window.
Vision
Looks
Window
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
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
When It Meows, One Scarcely Hears It... It Has Not The Need Of Words To Speak The Lengthiest Phraseologies.
Cat
Needs
Speak
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
The Old Paris Is No More (the Form Of A City Changes Faster, Alas! Than A Mortal's Heart).
Heart
Cities
Paris
There Are Moments Of Existence When Time And Space Are More Profound, And The Awareness Of Existence Is Immensely Heightened.
Space
Profound
Moments
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
The Insatiable Thirst For Everything That Lies Beyond, And That Life Reveals, Is The Most Living Proof Of Our Immortality.
Lying
Immortality
Proof
The Devil's Finest Trick Is To Persuade You That He Does Not Exist.
Life
Devil
Doe
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
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