76 quotes
I think there can be few examples of a life as dilapidated as mine.
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)
There is in the word, in the logos, something sacred which forbids us to gamble with it. To handle a language skilfuly is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery.
L'art romantique (1869)
This life is a hospital where each patient is possessed by the desire to change his bed.
Le Spleen de Paris (1862)
Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling.
We have psychologized like the insane, who aggravate their madness in struggling to understand it.
To glorify the cult of images (my great, my only, my earliest passion).
Journaux intimes (1864)
To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.
The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.
Le Spleen de Paris (1862)
Everything that gives pleasure has its reason. To scorn the mobs of those who go astray is not the means to bring them around.
There are in every man, at all times, two simultaneous tendencies, one toward God, the other toward Satan.
Journaux intimes (1864)
Evil happens without effort, naturally, inevitably; good is always the product of skill.
Le peintre de la vie moderne (1863)
To be a serviceable man has always seemed to me something quite repulsive.
Journaux intimes (1864)
Free man, you will always cherish the sea.
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)
There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create.
Unable to do away with love, the Church found a way to decontaminate it by creating marriage.
Journaux intimes (1864)
There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.
Le Spleen de Paris (1862)
What good is it to accomplish projects, when the project itself is enjoyment enough?
Le Spleen de Paris (1862)
God is the only being who need not even exist in order to reign.Whatever is created by the spirit is more alive than matter.
Journaux intimes (1864)
Do not look for my heart any more; the beasts have eaten it.
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)
Women do not know how to separate the soul from the body.
Journaux intimes (1864)