Arthur Rimbaud Quotes

O seasons, O castles, What soul is without flaws? All its lore is known to me, Felicity, it enchants us all.

Stronger than alcohol, vaster than poetry, Ferment the freckled red bitterness of love!

The poet, therefore, is truly the thief of fire. He is responsible for humanity, for animals even; he will have to make sure his visions can be smelled, fondled, listened to; if what he brings back from beyond has form, he gives it form; if it has none, he gives it none. A language must be found…of the soul, for the soul and will include everything: perfumes, sounds colors, thought grappling with thought

A man who wants to mutilate himself is certainly damned, isn't he?

Once, if I remember well, my life was a feast where all hearts opened and all wines flowed.

One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – And I found her bitter – And I reviled her.

A thousand Dreams within me softly burn

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.

And from that time on I bathed in the Poem Of the Sea, star-infused and churned into milk, Devouring the green azures; where, entranced in pallid flotsam, A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down.

I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.

The poet makes himself a voyant through a long, immense reasoned deranging of all his senses. All the forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he tries to find himself, he exhausts in himself all the poisons, to keep only their quintessences.

I'm intact, and I don't give a damn.

But the problem is to make the soul into a monster

Je est un autre. (I is someone else).

I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there.

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

You will always be a hyena.

I may die of earthly love, or of devotion.

As I descended into impassable rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen.

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

And from then on, I bathed in the Poem of the Sea, star-infused, and opalescent, devouring green azures

I went out under the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal.

There shall be poets! When woman's unmeasured bondage shall be broken, when she shall live for and through herself, man--hitherto detestable--having let her go, she, too, will be poet! Woman will find the unknown! Will her ideational worlds be different from ours? She will come upon strange, unfathomable, repellent, delightful things; we shall take them, we shall comprehend them.

On the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths, And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the wheat: Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet. I will let the wind bathe my bare head. I will not speak, I will have no thoughts: But infinite love will mount in my soul; And I will go far, far off, like a gypsy, through the countryside - as happy as if I were a woman. "Sensation

-But I've just noticed that my mind is asleep.

. . . be absolute moderne.

Hay que ser absolutamente Moderno

I dreamed of Crusades, voyages of discovery that nobody had heard of, republics without histories, religious wars stamped out, revolutions in morals, movements of races and continents; I used to believe in every kind of magic. I began it as an investigation. I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.

He would say, "How funny it will all seem, all you've gone through, when I'm not here anymore, when you no longer feel my arms around your shoulders, nor my heart beneath you, nor this mouth on your eyes, because I will have to go away some day, far away..." And in that instant I could feel myself with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness: into death.

Unhappiness was my god.

To whom shall I hire myself out? What beast should I adore? What holy image is attacked? What hearts shall I break? What lies shall I uphold? In what blood tread?

What am I doing here?

Whose hearts must I break? What lies must I maintain? - Through whose blood am I to wade ?

And again: No more gods! no more gods! Man is King, Man is God! - But the great Faith is Love!

...these poets here, you see, they are not of this world:let them live their strange life; let them be cold and hungry, let them run, love and sing: they are as rich as Jacques Coeur, all these silly children, for they have their souls full of rhymes, rhymes which laugh and cry, which make us laugh or cry: Let them live: God blesses all the merciful: and the world blesses the poets.

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

I understand, and not knowing how to express myself without pagan words, I’d rather remain silent

The Poet makes himself a seer through a long, vast and painstaking derangement of all the senses

What is my nothingness to the stupor that awaits you?

Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.

Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge.

Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.

Then you'll feel your cheek scratched... A little kiss, like a crazy spider, Will run round your neck... And you'll say to me : "Find it !" bending your head - And we'll take a long time to find that creature - Which travels a lot.

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.

I invented the colors of the vowels!--A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green--I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses.

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

For a long time I found the celebrities of modern painting and poetry ridiculous. I loved absurd pictures, fanlights, stage scenery, mountebanks backcloths, inn-signs, cheap colored prints; unfashionable literature, church Latin, pornographic books badly spelt, grandmothers novels, fairy stories, little books for children, old operas, empty refrains, simple rhythms.

I shed more tears than God could ever have required.