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"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."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet. My Heart Laid Bare (written c. 1865), publ. in Intimate Journals, sct. 71 (1887), trans. by Christopher Isherwood (1930), rev. by Don Bachardy (1989). |
"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."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet. "The Poem of Hashish," ch. 1, Les Paradis Artificiels (1860). |
"For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet. "My Heart Laid Bare," sct. 97, Intimate Journals (1887), trans. by Christopher Isherwood (1930), rev. by Don Bachardy (1989). |
"Drawing is a struggle between nature and the artist, in which the better the artist understands the intentions of nature, the more easily he will triumph over it. For him it is not a question of copying, but of interpreting in a simpler and more luminous language."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet, critic. The Salon of 1846, VII. On the Ideal and the Model (1846). |
"At each minute we are crushed by the idea and the feeling of time. And there are only two ways to escape this nightmare, Mto forget it: pleasure and work. Pleasure wears us out. Work fortifies us. Let's choose."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet, critic. My Heart Laid Bare, LXV (1887). |
"All beauties contain, like all possible phenomena, something eternal and something transitory,—something absolute and something particular. Absolute and eternal beauty does not exist, or rather it is only an abstraction skimmed from the common surface of different sorts of beauty. The particular element of each beauty comes from the emotions, and as we each have our own particular emotions, so we have our beauty."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet, critic. The Salon of 1846, XVIII. On the Heroism of Modern Life (1846). |
"The dandy should aspire to be uninterruptedly sublime. He should live and sleep in front of a mirror."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet. My Heart Laid Bare, Intimate Journals, sct. 27 (1887), trans. by Christopher Isherwood (1930), rev. Don Bachardy (1989). |
"Romanticism is found precisely neither in the choice of subjects nor in exact truth, but in a way of feeling."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet, critic. The Salon of 1846, II. What is Romanticism? (1846). |
"Even if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet, critic. My Heart Laid Bare, I (1887). |
"For me, Romanticism is the most recent and the most current expression of beauty."
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), French poet, critic. The Salon of 1846, II. What is Romanticism? (1846). |
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