Top 90 Arthur Rimbaud Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “O seasons, O castles, What soul is without flaws? All its lore is known to me, Felicity, it enchants us all.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

52. “All day long he was docile, intelligent, good, Though sometimes changing to a darker mood. He seemed hypocritical, could tell better lies, in the dark he saw dots of colors behind closed eyes, clenched fists, put his tongue out at his elder brother.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

53. “I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

54. “You feel on your lips a kiss Fluttering, a tiny scrap of life...”

— Arthur Rimbaud

55. “I wrote silences; nights; I recorded the unnameable.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

56. “Faith assuages, guides, restores.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

57. “Yet this is the watch by night. Let us all accept new strength, and real tenderness. And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

58. “The wolf howled under the leaves And spit out the prettiest feathers Of his meal of fowl: Like him I consume myself.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

59. “Come back, come back, dear friend, only friend, come back. I promise to be good.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

60. “I am alone in possessing a key to this barbarous sideshow.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

61. “And I am still alive-what though, my damnation is eternal. A man who deliberately mutilates himself is truly damned, is he not? I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

62. “Hay que ser absolutamente Moderno.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

63. “A man who wants to mutilate himself is certainly damned, isn’t he?”

— Arthur Rimbaud

64. “The white men are landing. Cannons! Now we must be baptized, get dressed, and go to work. My heart has been stabbed by grace. Ah! I hadn’t thought this would happen!”

— Arthur Rimbaud

65. “I will tear the veils from every mystery: mysteries of religion or of nature, death, birth, the future, the past, cosmogony, and nothingness. I am a master of phantasmagoria.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

66. “And, in the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid cities.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

67. “Oh! If only we were naked now, and free to watch our protruding parts align; To whisper – both of us – in ecstasy!”

— Arthur Rimbaud

68. “The Poet, therefore, is truly the thief of fire.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

69. “Aphrodite’s thirst was never quenched; it was cruel and dreamy. It was certainly the most splendid kind of thirst.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

70. “What an old maid I’m getting to be. lacking the courage to be in love with death!”

— Arthur Rimbaud

71. “Hire myself out to whom? What beast must I worship? What sacred images should I destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lies am I supposed to believe? March through whose blood?”

— Arthur Rimbaud

72. “What will happen to the world when you leave it? Nothing, in any case, will remain of what is now visible.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

73. “In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

74. “Priests, professors, masters, you are wrong to turn me over to Justice. I have never belonged to this people. I have never been Christian. I am of the race that sang under torture. I do not understand your laws. I have no moral sense, I am a brute.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

75. “Is it possible to become ecstatic amid destruction, rejuvenate oneself through cruelty?”

— Arthur Rimbaud

76. “I’m now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I’m working at turning myself into a seer. You won’t understand any of this, and I’m almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It’s really not my fault.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

77. “ONCE, if I remember well, my life was a feast where all hearts opened and all wines flowed. One evening I seated Beauty on my knees. And I found her bitter. And I cursed her.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

78. “While public funds evaporate in feasts of fraternity, a bell of rosy fire rings in the clouds.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

79. “The hallucinations are innumerable. That’s what has always been the matter with me, in fact: no belief in history, obliviousness of principles. I shall say no more about this: poets and visionaries would be jealous. I am a thousand times the richest, let’s be as miserly as the sea.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

80. “Delivered to oblivion... growing and flowering with incense and weeds to the sullen whine of nasty flies... I loved deserts, burnt out orchards, faded boutiques... I dragged myself down stinking alleyways... General, if there’s an old cannon left, aim for the glass of splendid shops, into the living rooms... make the city eat its own dust.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

81. “I saw that all living things were doomed, to bliss: that’s not living; it’s just a way to waste what we have, a drain.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

82. “I am unknown; what does it matter? Poets are brothers. These lines believe; they love; they hope; and that is all. Dear Master, help me up a little. I am young. Hold out your hand to me.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

83. “I looked on the disorder of my mind as sacred. Disaster was my God.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

84. “I will never possess my hand.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

85. “Satan, you clown, you want to dissolve me with your charms. Well, I want it. I want it! Stab me with a pitchfork, sprinkle me with fire!”

— Arthur Rimbaud

86. “The world progresses! Why shouldn’t it turn as well?”

— Arthur Rimbaud

87. “This lofty thought proves I dreamt it!”

— Arthur Rimbaud

88. “I am hidden and I am not.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

89. “From castles of bone unknown music comes.”

— Arthur Rimbaud

90. “And think of me. It’s worth the loss of the world. I’m lucky to see my suffering ended. Alas: my life was little more than a few mild madnesses.”

— Arthur Rimbaud