I will drop into your chest like a vegetal ambrosia. I will be the grain that regenerates the cruelly plowed furrow. Poetry will be born of our intimate union. A god we shall create together, and we shall soar heavenward like sunbeams, perfumes, butterflies, birds, and all winged things.
Charles BaudelaireWhere one should see only what is beautiful, our public looks only for what is true.
Charles BaudelaireOne must work, if not from inclination, at least out of despair — since it proves, on close examination, that work is less boring than amusing oneself.
Charles BaudelaireIt is regrettable that, among the Rights of Man, the right of contradicting oneself has been forgotten.
Charles BaudelaireThe solitary and thoughtful stroller finds a singular intoxication in this universal communion. The man who loves to lose himself in a crowd enjoys feverish delights that the egoist locked up in himself as in a box, and the slothful man like a mollusk in his shell, will be eternally deprived of. He adopts as his own all the occupations, all the joys and all the sorrows that chance offers.
Charles Baudelaire