Quotes by Baudelaire, Charles

"Alas, human vices, however horrible one might imagine them to be, contain the proof (were it only in their infinite expansion) of man's longing for the infinite; but it is a longing that often takes the wrong route. It is my belief that the reason behind all culpable excesses lies in this depravation of the sense of the infinite."

Baudelaire, Charles on vice   

"There are in every man, always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan. Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to climb higher; that of Satan, or animality, is delight in descent."

Baudelaire, Charles on virtue   

"The cannon thunders... limbs fly in all directions... one can hear the groans of victims and the howling of those performing the sacrifice... it's Humanity in search of happiness."

Baudelaire, Charles on war   

"A sweetheart is a bottle of wine, a wife is a wine bottle."

Baudelaire, Charles on wives   

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"The being who, for most men, is the source of the most lively, and even, be it said, to the shame of philosophical delights, the most lasting joys; the being towards or for whom all their efforts tend for whom and by whom fortunes are made and lost; for whom, but especially by whom, artists and poets compose their most delicate jewels; from whom flow the most enervating pleasures and the most enriching sufferings -- woman, in a word, is not, for the artist in general... only the female of the human species. She is rather a divinity, a star."

Baudelaire, Charles on women   

"Inspiration comes of working every day."

Baudelaire, Charles on work
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"On the day when a young writer corrects his first proof-sheet he is as proud as a schoolboy who has just got his first dose of pox."

Baudelaire, Charles on writers and writing   

"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist"

Baudelaire, Charles on evil
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"The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it."

Baudelaire, Charles on life   

"There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them."

Baudelaire, Charles on contemplation   

"To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons."

Baudelaire, Charles on criticism   

"It is from the womb of art that criticism was born."

Baudelaire, Charles on criticism