The dandy should aspire to be uninterruptedly sublime. He should live and sleep in front of a mirror.
Charles Baudelairethe Devil's hand directs our every move - / the things we loathed become the things we love
Charles BaudelaireThere exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them.
Charles BaudelaireHow little remains of the man I once was, save the memory of him! But remembering is only a new form of suffering.
Charles BaudelaireDandyism is the last flicker of heroism in decadent ages.... Dandyism is a setting sun; like the declining star, it is magnificent, without heat and full of melancholy. But alas! the rising tide of democracy, which spreads everywhere and reduces everything to the same level, is daily carrying away these last champions of human pride, and submerging, in the waters of oblivion, the last traces of these remarkable myrmidons.
Charles Baudelaire