Quote

Alas, human vices, however horrible one might imagine them to be, contain the proof (were it only in their infinite expansion) of man's longing for the infinite but it is a longing that often takes the wrong route. It is my belief that the reason behind all culpable excesses lies in this depravation of the sense of the infinite.

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
Human
Imagine
Horrible
Routes
Humans
Belief
Infinite
Contain
Men
Wrong
However
Expansion
Lying
Lies
Alas
Often
Behinds
Excess
Sense
Behind
Longing
Culpable
Reason
Virtue
Vices
Excesses
Might
Takes
Proof
Route

More quotes by Charles Baudelaire

Image
Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject, nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
With wine, poetry, or virtue as you choose. But get drunk.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, be endlessly drunk.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Quand me me Dieu n'existerait pas, la religion serait encore sainte et divineDieu est le seul e tre qui, pour re gner, n'ait me me pas besoin d'exister. Even if God did not exist, religion would still be holyand divine.God isthe only being who, inorder toreign, need not even exist.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Unable to do away with love, the Church found a way to decontaminate it by creating marriage.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
In art, there is one thing which does not receive sufficient attention. The element which is left to the human will is not nearly so large as people think.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
He who looks through an open window sees fewer things than he who looks through a closed window.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
I have to confess that I had gambled on my soul and lost it with heroic insouciance and lightness of touch. The soul is so impalpable, so often useless, and sometimes such a nuisance, that I felt no more emotion on losing it than if, on a stroll, I had mislaid my visiting card.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
The People adore authority.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
To glorify the cult of images (my great, my only, my earliest passion).
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Progress, this great heresy of decay.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
By nature, by necessity itself, [primitive man] is encyclopedic, while civilized man finds himself confined in the infinitely small regions of specialization.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Color... thinks by itself, independently of the object it clothes.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
The vices of man, as full of horror as one might suppose them to be, contain the proof (if in nothing else but their infinitely expandable nature) of his taste for the infinite only, it is a taste that often takes a wrong turn.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
There are in every man, always, two simultaneous allegiances, one to God, the other to Satan. Invocation of God, or Spirituality, is a desire to climb higher that of Satan, or animality, is delight in descent.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
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
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