Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire; April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth9 April 1821
CityParis, France
CountryFrance
wish able privilege
The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.
literature adultery sexuality
Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses.
art fleeting half
Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable.
time mean night
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.
giving literature taste
What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.
archer wings clouds
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.
mean doubt age
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.
wine order drunk
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!
corruption ancient ancient-times
In our corruption we perceive beauties unrevealed to ancient times.
biographies appetite immense
The immense appetite we have for biography comes from a deep-seated sense of equality.
grace pleasure richness
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.
walks corpses
You walk on corpses, beauty, undismayed.
summer sweet air
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.
pain men long
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.