573 Quotes by Charles Baudelaire

It is unfortunately very true that, without leisure and money, love can be no more than an orgy of the common man. Instead of being a sudden impulse full of ardor and reverie, it becomes a distastefully utilitarian affair.

Certes, je sortirai quant a' moi satisfait D'un monde o u' l'action n'est pas la soeur du re" ve. Indeed, for my part, I shall be happy to leave A world where action is not sister to the dream.

Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams, words!

In this horror of solitude, this need to lose his ego in exterior flesh, which man calls grandly the need for love.

Je sais la douleur est la noblesse unique O u' ne mordront jamais la terre et les enfers. I know that pain is the one nobility upon which Hell itself cannot encroach.

The more one works, the better one works, and the more one wants to work. The more one produces, the more fertile one grows.

The form of a town changes more swiftly alas! Than the heart of a mortal.

Wine transforms moles into eagles.

Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves. They do everything in their power not to have any. And therefore, the great man, in order to exist, must possess a force of attack which is greater than the force of resistance developed by millions of people.