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 worldโimpartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito.
Charles BaudelaireTo dream magnificently is not a gift given to all men, and even for those who possess it, it runs a strong risk of being progressively diminished by the ever-growing dissipation of modern life and by the restlessness engendered by material progress. The ability to dream is a divine and mysterious ability; because it is through dreams that man communicates with the shadowy world which surrounds him. But this power needs solitude to develop freely; the more one concentrates, the more one is likely to dream fully, deeply.
Charles BaudelaireOur squalid society rushed, Narcissus to a man, to gaze on its trivial image on a scrap of metal.
Charles BaudelaireI should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.
Charles Baudelaire