Quotes by Charles Baudelaire

“Be always drunken.Nothing else matters:that is the only question.If you would not feelthe horrible burden of Timeweighing on your shouldersand crushing you to the earth,be drunken continually.Drunken with what?With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.But be drunken.And if sometimes,on the stairs of a palace,or on the green side of a ditch,or in the dreary solitude of your own room,you should awakenand the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you,ask of the wind,or of the wave,or of the star,or of the bird,or of the clock,of whatever flies,or sighs,or rocks,or sings,or speaks,ask what hour it is;and the wind,wave,star,bird,clock will answer you:"It is the hour to be drunken!””

“If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist.””

“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.””

“Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.””

“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.””

“My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.””

“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.””

“I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.””

“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.””

“Extract the eternal from the ephemeral.””

“I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.””

“What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?””

“Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we’re indifferent to whether we win or lose?””