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
morning fall winter
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.
beautiful care i-care
What do I care if you are good? Be beautiful! and be sad!
expression self childhood
Genius is nothing more or less than childhood recovered by will, a childhood how equipped for self-expression with an adult's capacities.
art convince-us devil
It is the greatest art of the devil to convince us he does not exist.
art cheer mind
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.
photography art believe
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.
gambling soul nuisance
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.
music cat glasses
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.
literature adultery sexuality
Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses.
wish able privilege
The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.
believe crowds literature
The priest is an immense being because he makes the crowd believe astonishing things.
artist history dueling
The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries with terror before being defeated.
men important saint
To be a great man and a saint for oneself, that is the only important thing.
life lonely heart
To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.