"Our religion is itself profoundly sad - a religion of universal anguish, and one which, because of its very catholicity, grants full liberty to the individual and asks no better than to be celebrated in each man's own language - so long as he knows anguish and is a painter."

"Modernity is the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent, which make up one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immutable. This transitory fugitive element, which is constantly changing, must not be despised or neglected."

"God is the only being who, in order to reign, doesn't even need to exist."

"To handle a language skillfully is to practice a kind of evocative sorcery."

"The immense appetite we have for biography comes from a deep-seated sense of equality."

"And, drunk with my own madness, I shouted at him furiously, "Make life beautiful! Make life beautiful!"

"A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors."

"If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force."

"Life has but one true charm: the charm of the game. But what if we're indifferent to whether we win or lose?"

"We are all born marked for evil."

"It is from the womb of art that criticism was born."

"Genius is childhood recalled at will."

"I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old."

"Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity."

"The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes."

"Flesh is willing, but the Soul requiresSisyphean patience for its song,Time, Hippocrates remarked, is shortand Art is long."

"Nothing is as tedious as the limping days,When snowdrifts yearly cover all the ways,And ennui, sour fruit of incurious gloom,Assumes control of fate's immortal loom."

"How convenient it is to declare that everything is totally ugly within the habit of the époque, rather than applying oneself to extract from it the dark and cryptic beauty, however faint and invisible it is."

"That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal; from which it follows that irregularity-that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty."

"Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty."

"Let us beware of common folk, of common sense, of sentiment, of inspiration, and of the obvious."

"The lover of life makes the whole world into his family, just as the lover of the fair sex creates his from all the lovely women he has found, from those that could be found, and those who are impossible to find."

"Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire of changing his bed. One would prefer to suffer near the fire and another is certain he would get well if he were by the window."

"He possessed the logic of all good intentions and a knowledge of all the tricks of his trade, and yet he never succeeded at anything, because he believed too much in the impossible. Surprising? Why so? He was forever in the act of conceiving it!"

"It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish."

"Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself."

"Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate; good is always the product of an art."

"My love, do you recall the object which we saw,That fair, sweet, summer morn!At a turn in the path a foul carcassOn a gravel strewn bed,Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,Burning and dripping with poisons,Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant wayIts belly, swollen with gases."

"But a dandy can never be a vulgar man."

"On peut chercher dans Dieu le complice et l'ami qui manquent toujours. Dieu est l'Éternel confident dans cette tragédie dont chacun est le héros."

"As a remedy against all ills - poverty sickness and melanchol - only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work."

"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."

"We love women in proportion to their degree of strangeness to us."

"The pleasure we derive from the representation of the present is due, not only to the beauty it can be clothed in, but also to its essential quality of being the present."

"Whether you come from heaven or hell, what does it matter, O Beauty!"

"In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men."

"The solitary and thoughtful stroller finds a singular intoxication in this universal communion. The man who loves to lose himself in a crowd enjoys feverish delights that the egoist locked up in himself as in a box, and the slothful man like a mollusk in his shell, will be eternally deprived of. He adopts as his own all the occupations, all the joys and all the sorrows that chance offers."

"There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness."

"It would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, as portrayed by Milton."

"If the word doesn't exist, invent it; but first be sure it doesn't exist."

"For the merchant, even honesty is a financial speculation."

"I am a cemetery by the moon unblessed."

"There is no dream of love, however ideal it may be, which does not end up with a fat, greedy baby hanging from the breast."

"était tard ; ainsi qu’une médaille neuve
La pleine lune s’étalait,
Et la solennité de la nuit, comme un fleuve
Sur Paris dormant ruisselait."

"Hypocrite reader my fellow my brother!"

"Any newspaper, from the first line to the last, is nothing but a web of horrors, I cannot understand how an innocent hand can touch a newspaper without convulsing in disgust."

"The unique and supreme voluptuousness of love lies in the certainty of committing evil. And men and women know from birth that in evil is found all sensual delight."

"Abolishers of the soul (materialists) are necessarily abolishers of hell, they, certainly, are interested. At all events, they are people who fear to live again--lazy people."

"Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry."

"I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on, The windows and the stars illumined, one by one, The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily, And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass; And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass, I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight, And build me stately palaces by candlelight."