Quote

Our squalid society rushed, Narcissus to a man, to gaze on its trivial image on a scrap of metal.

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
Society
Narcissus
Men
Rushed
Scrap
Trivial
Gaze
Metal
Metals
Image
Squalid

More quotes by Charles Baudelaire

Image
Drink wine, drink poetry, drink virtue.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Being a useful man has always seemed to me to be something truly hideous.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by a desire to change his bed.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Where ever I am not is the place where I am myself.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
There are some temptations which are so strong that they must be virtues.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
The form of a town changes more swiftly alas! Than the heart of a mortal.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
One 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 Baudelaire
Image
When a singer puts his hand on his heart, it means usually, I will always love you!
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Amer savoir, celui qu'on tire du voyage! Bitter is the knowledge gained in travelling.
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
Pure draughtsmen are philosophers and dialecticians. Colourists are epic poets.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
A work of art should be like a well-planned crime.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
An artist is only an artist on condition that he neglects no aspect of his dual nature. This dualism is the power of being oneself and someone else at one and the same time.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude which is its natural ally.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
What men call love is a very small, restricted, feeble thing compared with this ineffable orgy, this divine prostitution of the soul giving itself entire, all its poetry and all its charity, to the unexpected as it comes along, to the stranger as he passes.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
How bittersweet it is, on winter's night, To listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire, As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light, Rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
La' , tout n'est qu'ordre et beaute , Luxe, calme et volupte . There where all is order and beauty. Lush, calm and voluptuous.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.
Charles Baudelaire
Image
Always be drunk ... Get drunk militantly. Just get drunk.
Charles Baudelaire