Charles Baudelaire

The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance;We find delight in the most loathsome things;Some furtherance of Hell each new day brings,And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance.

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.

Once someone asked, when I was present, what constituted the greatest pleasure in love. Someone replied, naturally: in receiving. Another: in giving. Someone said: the pleasure of pride! someone else: the ecstasy of humility! All these muckers making like the Imitation of Christ. Finally, an impudent utopian was found who insisted that the greatest pleasure of love was in forming new citizens for the fatherland. Me, I said: what is uniquely, supremely voluptuous about love lies in the certainty of doing evil.

The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.

Thanks be to God, Who gives us sufferingas sacred remedy for all our sins,that best and purest essence which preparesthe strong in spirit for divine delights!

The mixture of the grotesque and the tragic is agreeable to the spirit, as are discords to the jaded ear.

The mainspring of genius is curiosity.

To be away from home and yet find oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet remain hidden from the world.

Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity.

I walk alone, absorbed in my fantastic play, _ Fencing with rhymes, which, parrying nimbly, back away; Tripping on words, as on rough paving in the street, Or bumping into verses I long had dreamed to meet.

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn__ exist___harles Baudelaire __he second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is the good guy___en Ammi

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.

On peut chercher dans Dieu le complice et l'ami qui manquent toujours. Dieu est l'éternel confident dans cette tragédie dont chacun est le héros.

Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.

Music fathoms the sky.

Nature can counsel nothing but crime.

Nature is a word, an allegory, a mold, an embossing, if you will.

Nature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances.