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Ant-swarming city, city abounding in dreams,
Where ghosts in broad daylight accost the passerby!

— Charles Baudelaire Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,
Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!

Original text (French)

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Notes from Wikiquote

"Les Sept Vieillards" [The Seven Old Men]

Topics

Dreams

More quotes by Charles Baudelaire

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.

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Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me.

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Religion in so far as it is a source of consolation is a hindrance to true faith; and in this sense atheism is a purification.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Baudelaire (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.