573 Quotes by Charles Baudelaire

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

Beware of all the paradoxical in love. It is simplicity which saves, it is simplicity which brings happiness...Love should be love.

In the domain of painting and statuary, the present-day credo of the worldly wise, especially in France, is this: ... I believe that art is, and can only be, the exact reproduction of nature... An avenging God has heard the prayers of this multitude; Daguerre was his messiah.

Today I felt pass over me A breath of wind from the wings of madness.

The more a man cultivates the arts the less he fornicates. A more and more apparent cleavage occurs between the spirit and the brute.

It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it-it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

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.

Where ever I am not is the place where I am myself.