Quote

I sit in the sky like a sphinx misunderstood My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans I hate the movement that displaces the rigid lines, With lips untaught neither tears nor laughter do I know.

Charles Baudelaire

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Baudelaire
Age: 46 †
Born: 1821
Born: April 9
Died: 1867
Died: August 30
Art Critic
Author
Essayist
Literary Critic
Poet
Translator
Writer
Paris
France
Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire-Dufaÿs
Charles Pierre Baudelaire
Like
Sky
Displaces
Laughter
Sphinx
Neither
Whiteness
Tears
Swans
Movement
Rigid
Lines
Misunderstood
Hate
Snow
Heart
Lips
Untaught

More quotes by Charles Baudelaire

Image
Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Genius is simply childhood, rediscovered by an act of will.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
France at the dinner table in faraway places but here, among ourselves, in the family, let us face the facts: France is not poetic to tell the truth, she even feels a congenital horror of poetry. Among the writers who use verse, those whom she will always prefer are the most prosaic.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
It is unfortunately very true that, without leisure and money, love can be no more than an orgy of the common man. Instead of being a sudden impulse full of ardor and reverie, it becomes a distastefully utilitarian affair.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Every healthy man can do without food for two days — but without poetry, never!
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Our squalid society rushed, Narcissus to a man, to gaze on its trivial image on a scrap of metal.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference. Gesture, grimace, clothing, decor even - all must combine to realize a character.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Like those great sphinxes lounging through eternity in noble attitudes upon the desert sand, they gaze incuriously at nothing, calm and wise.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject, nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Everything, alas, is an abyss, — actions, desires, dreams, words!
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Blessed art Thou, Lord, who giveth suffering As a divine remedy for our impurities.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
A book is a garden, a party, a company by the way.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before he is defeated.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
There is no sweeter pleasure than to surprise a man by giving him more than he hopes for.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
However incoherent a human existence may be, human unity is not bothered by it.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
From that moment onwards, our loathsome society rushed, like Narcissus, to contemplate its trivial image on a metallic plate. A form of lunacy, an extraordinary fanaticism took hold of these new sun-worshippers.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
When a singer puts his hand on his heart, it means usually, I will always love you!
Charles Baudelaire
Image
This life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change beds one man would like to suffer in front of the stove, and another believes that he would recover his health beside the window.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.
Charles Baudelaire