573 Quotes by Charles Baudelaire

As a remedy against all ills – poverty, sickness, and melancholy – only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work.

In my mind it strolls, as well as in my apartment. A cat, strong, sweet and delightful...

The most prostituted being, the Being par excellence, is God, since He is the supreme friend to every individual; since He is the common, inexhaustible reservoir of love.

It’s the devil who pulls the strings that make us dance.

Race of Cain, ascend to heaven, And cast God down upon the earth!

Nothing is as tedious as the limping days, When snowdrifts yearly cover all the ways, And ennui, sour fruit of incurious gloom, Assumes control of fate’s immortal loom.

THE CAT Come, superb cat, to my amorous heart; Hold back the talons of your paws, Let me gaze into your beautiful eyes Of metal and agate. When my fingers leisurely caress you, Your head and your elastic back, And when my hand tingles with the pleasure Of feeling your electric body, In spirit I see my woman. Her gaze Like your own, amiable beast, Profound and cold, cuts and cleaves like a dart, And, from her head down to her feet, A subtle air, a dangerous perfume Floats about her dusky body.

Le mal se fait sans effort, naturellement, par fatalite ; le bien est toujours le produit d’un art. Evil is done without effort, naturally, it’s destiny; good is always a product of art.

How bittersweet it is, on winter’s night, To listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire, As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light, Rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.