The collection / 110 fragments

The living archive

Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01Undated

That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which it follows that irregularity—that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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02Undated

I sit in the sky like a sphinx misunderstood; My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans; I hate the movement that displaces the rigid lines, With lips untaught neither tears nor laughter do I know.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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03Undated

The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being vanquished.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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04Undated

How convenient it is to declare that everything is totally ugly within the habit of the époque, rather than applying oneself to extract from it the dark and cryptic beauty, however faint and invisible it is.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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05Undated

Abolishers of the soul (materialists) are necessarily abolishers of hell, they, certainly, are interested. At all events, they are people who fear to live again--lazy people.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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06Undated

Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally; goodness is always the product of some art.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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07Undated

The Beautiful is always strange.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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08Undated

The immense appetite we have for biography comes from a deep-seated sense of equality.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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09Undated

I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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10Undated

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.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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11Undated

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

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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12Undated

Nature can counsel nothing but crime.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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13Undated

Music fathoms the sky.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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14Undated

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

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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15Undated

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.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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16Undated

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.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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17Undated

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

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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18Undated

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.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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19Undated

The mainspring of genius is curiosity.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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20Undated

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

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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21Undated

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!

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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22Undated

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

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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23Undated

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.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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24Undated

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.

Charles Baudelaire / quote

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