573 Quotes by Charles Baudelaire

Genius is nothing more or less than childhood recovered by will, a childhood how equipped for self-expression with an adult’s capacities.

J’ai plus de souvenirs que si j’avais mille ans. IhavemorememoriesthanifIwereonethousandyearsold.

To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world – impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.

A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.

So you see how difficult it is to understand one another, my dear angel, how incommunicable thought is, even between two people in love.

Everything for me becomes allegory.

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.

I join a heart of snow to the whiteness of swans; I hate movement for it displaces lines, And never do I weep and never do I laugh.

How difficult it is to understand each other, my dear angel, and how much thought is incommunicable, even between people who love each other!