Top 350 Charles Baudelaire Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Genius is simply childhood, rediscovered by an act of will.”

— Charles Baudelaire

102. “To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.”

— Charles Baudelaire

103. “Doubt, or the absence of faith and naivete, is a vice peculiar to this age, for no one is obedient nowadays; and naivete, which means the dominance of temperament in the manner, is a gift from God, possessed by very few.”

— Charles Baudelaire

104. “I think I would be happy in that place I happen not to be, and this question of moving house is the subject of a perpetual dialogue I have with my soul.”

— Charles Baudelaire

105. “Photographers, you will never become artists. All you are is mere copiers.”

— Charles Baudelaire

106. “The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day; But on the ground, among the hooting crowds, He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.”

— Charles Baudelaire

107. “I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.”

— Charles Baudelaire

108. “Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man’s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.”

— Charles Baudelaire

109. “You must be drunk always. That is everything: the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time that crushes your shoulders and bends you earthward, you must be drunk without respite. But drunk on what? On wine, on poetry, on virtue – take your pick. But be drunk.”

— Charles Baudelaire

110. “Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.”

— Charles Baudelaire

111. “We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.”

— Charles Baudelaire

112. “I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust.”

— Charles Baudelaire

113. “Dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music.”

— Charles Baudelaire

114. “L’art est long, et le temps est court.”

— Charles Baudelaire

115. “Any healthy man can go without food for two days – but not without poetry.”

— Charles Baudelaire

116. “In order not to feel time’s horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, get drunk and stay that way. On what? On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk!”

— Charles Baudelaire

117. “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

118. “One man illumines you with his other sets in you his sorrow.”

— Charles Baudelaire

119. “There are some temptations which are so strong that they must be virtues.”

— Charles Baudelaire

120. “In literature as in ethics, there is danger, as well as glory, in being subtle. Aristocracy isolates us.”

— Charles Baudelaire

121. “The mainspring of genius is curiosity.”

— Charles Baudelaire

122. “But a dandy can never be a vulgar man.”

— Charles Baudelaire

123. “In our corruption we perceive beauties unrevealed to ancient times.”

— Charles Baudelaire

124. “Our mortal eyes, however bright, are only darkened melancholy mirrors.”

— Charles Baudelaire

125. “I have cultivated my hysteria with delight and terror. Now I suffer continually from vertigo, and today, 23rd of January, 1862, I have received a singular warning, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness pass over me.”

— Charles Baudelaire

126. “I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old.”

— Charles Baudelaire

127. “Quand notre coeur a fait une fois sa vendange, Vivre est un mal. Once our heart has been harvested once, Life becomes miserable.”

— Charles Baudelaire

128. “I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed.”

— Charles Baudelaire

129. “Those men get along best with women who can get along best without them.”

— Charles Baudelaire

130. “What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound than a portrait.”

— Charles Baudelaire

131. “The poet is like the prince of clouds Who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer; Exiled on the ground in the midst of jeers, His giant wings prevent him from walking.”

— Charles Baudelaire

132. “My dear brothers, never forget, when you hear the progress of enlightenment vaunted, that the devil’s best trick is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist!”

— Charles Baudelaire

133. “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

134. “Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference. Gesture, grimace, clothing, decor even – all must combine to realize a character.”

— Charles Baudelaire

135. “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.”

— Charles Baudelaire

136. “True Civilization does not lie in gas, nor in steam, nor in turn-tables. It lies in the reduction of the traces of original sin.”

— Charles Baudelaire

137. “It is the pleasure of astonishing others, and the proud satisfaction of never being astonished by them.”

— Charles Baudelaire

138. “Soon we will plunge ourselves into cold shadows, and all of summer’s stunning afternoons will be gone. I already hear the dead thuds of logs below falling on the cobblestones and the lawn.”

— Charles Baudelaire

139. “To the solemn graves, near a lonely cemetery, my heart like a muffled drum is beating funeral marches.”

— Charles Baudelaire

140. “A silent mouth is sweet to hear.”

— Charles Baudelaire

141. “To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world – impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.”

— Charles Baudelaire

142. “If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally.”

— Charles Baudelaire

143. “It is easy to understand why the rabble dislike cats. A cat is beautiful; it suggests ideas of luxury, cleanliness, voluptuous pleasures.”

— Charles Baudelaire

144. “I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.”

— Charles Baudelaire

145. “Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to express passion as clearly as possible.”

— Charles Baudelaire

146. “Amer savoir, celui qu’on tire du voyage! Bitter is the knowledge gained in travelling.”

— Charles Baudelaire

147. “Woman is natural, that is to say, abominable.”

— Charles Baudelaire

148. “It’s the devil who pulls the strings that make us dance.”

— Charles Baudelaire

149. “We love women in proportion to their degree of strangeness to us.”

— Charles Baudelaire

150. “Both ardent lovers and austere scholars, when once they come to the years of discretion, love cats, so strong and gentle, the pride of the household, who like them are sensitive to the cold, and sedentary.”

— Charles Baudelaire