“The unique and supreme voluptuousness of love lies in the certainty of committing evil. And men and women know from birth that in evil is found all sensual delight.”
Men
“What is art? Prostitution.”
ArtAll Quotes by Charles Baudelaire
“France is not poetic she even feels, in fact, a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse, those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic.”
Poetry“Beauty is the sole ambition, the exclusive goal of Taste.”
Beauty“It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish.”
Poetry“The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries with terror before being defeated.”
Beauty“There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create.”
Respect“Modernity signifies the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, the half of art of which the other half is the eternal and the immutable.”
Art“It would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, as portrayed by Milton.”
Beauty“Whether you come from heaven or hell, what does it matter, O Beauty!”
Beauty“Who would dare assign to art the sterile function of imitating nature?”
Art“Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate good is always the product of an art.”
Art“The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.”
Music“Evil is committed without effort, naturally, fatally goodness is always the product of some art.”
Art“Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable.”
Art“Even if it were proven that God didn't exist, Religion would still be Saintly and Divine.”
Religion“A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else.”
Art“For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation.”
Finance“Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.”
Work“This life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with a desire to change his bed.”
Change“Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction.”
Beauty