He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window. Charles Baudelaire More Quotes by Charles Baudelaire More Quotes From Charles Baudelaire What I have always found most beautiful in the theatre, in my childhood, and still today, is lustre--a beautiful object, luminous, crystalline, complex, circular, symmetrical. However, I do not absolutely deny the value of dramatic literature. Only, I should like the actors to be mounted on high pattens, to wear masks more expressive than the human face, and to speak through megaphones. Charles Baudelaire childhood theatre beautiful Love is a taste for prostitution. In fact, there is no noble pleasure that cannot be reduced to Prostitution. Charles Baudelaire noble taste love For me, Romanticism is the most recent and the most current expression of beauty. Charles Baudelaire currents expression beauty I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust. Charles Baudelaire honor men hands So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, be endlessly drunk. Charles Baudelaire drunk break earth It is at once by way of poetry and through poetry, as with music, that the soul glimpses splendors from beyond the tomb; and when an exquisite poem brings one's eyes to the point of tears, those tears are not evidence of an excess of joy, they are witness far more to an exacerbated melancholy, a disposition of the nerves, a nature exiled among imperfect things, which would like to possess, without delay, a paradise revealed on this very same earth. Charles Baudelaire imperfect-things poetry eye I watch the springs, the summers, the autumns; And when comes the winter snow monotonous, I shut all the doors and shutters To build in the night my fairy palace. Charles Baudelaire autumn summer spring Every idea is endowed of itself with immortal life, like a human being. All created form, even that which is created by man, is immortal. For form is independent of matter: molecules do not constitute form. Charles Baudelaire independent men ideas 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. Charles Baudelaire god men two 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. Charles Baudelaire happiness war funny In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us. Charles Baudelaire aristocracy ethics literature Beauty is the sole ambition, the exclusive goal of Taste. Charles Baudelaire ambition goal beauty The photographic industry was the refuge of all the painters who couldn't make it, either because they had no talent or because they were too lazy to finish their studies. Hence this universal infatuation was not only characterized by blindness and stupidity, but also by vindictiveness. Charles Baudelaire lazy talent stupidity Il faut e pater le bourgeois. One must astound the bourgeois. Charles Baudelaire bourgeois Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity. Charles Baudelaire queens infinity imagination ...an industry which can furnish results identical to nature must be the absolute in art. Charles Baudelaire identical results art There can be no progress-real, moral prgress-except in the individual and by the individual himself. Charles Baudelaire real philosophy art What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense. Charles Baudelaire taste literature giving The act of love strongly resembles torture or surgery. Charles Baudelaire torture acts-of-love love L'imagination est la reine du vrai, et le possible est une des provinces du vrai. Imagination is the queen of the truth and the possible is one of the provinces of the truth. Charles Baudelaire provinces queens imagination
