Il était tard; ainsi qu’une médaille neuveLa pleine lune s’étalait,Et la solennité de la nuit, comme un fleuveSur Paris dormant ruisselait.

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

The Beautiful is always strange.

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...

Do you remember the sight we saw, my soul,that soft summer morninground a turning in the path,the disgusting carcass on a bed scattered with stones,its legs in the air like a woman in needburning its...

Nature is a word, an allegory, a mold, an embossing, if you will.

Les hibouxSous les ifs noirs qui les abritent,Les hiboux se tiennent rangés,Ainsi que des dieux étrangers,Dardant leur oeil rouge. Ils méditent.Sans remuer ils se tiendrontJusqu’à l’heure mélancoliqueOù, poussant le soleil oblique,Les ténèbres s’établiront.Leur attitude au...

With heart at rest I climbed the citadel’sSteep height, and saw the city as from a tower,Hospital, brothel, prison, and such hells,Where evil comes up softly like a flower.Thou knowest, O Satan, patron of my...

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

The study of beauty is a duel in which the artist cries out in terror before being vanquished.

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

It’s time, Old Captain, lift anchor, sink!The land rots; we shall sail into the night;if now the sky and sea are black as inkour hearts, as you must know, are filled with light.Only when we...

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.

It is at despair at not being able to be noble and beautiful by natural means that we have made up our faces so strangely.

If rape or arson, poison or the knifeHas wove no pleasing patterns in the stuffOf this drab canvas we accept as life -It is because we are not bold enough!

To be wicked is never excusable, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; the most irreparable of vices is to do evil from stupidity.

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

The old Paris is no more (the form of a city changes faster, alas! than a mortal’s heart).

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.

Thanks be to God, Who gives us sufferingas sacred remedy for all our sins,that best and purest essence which preparesthe strong in spirit for divine delights!

I have felt the wind on the wing of madness.

Tell me, enigmatical man, whom do you love best, your father,Your mother, your sister, or your brother?I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.Your friends?Now you use a word whose meaning I have...

The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance;We find delight in the most loathsome things;Some furtherance of Hell each new day brings,And yet we feel no horror in that rank advance.

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuéesQui hante la tempête et se rit de l’archer;Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher.

A friend of mine, the most innocuous dreamer who ever lived, once set a forest on fire to see, as he said, if it would catch as easily as people said. The first ten times...

Always be a poet, even in prose.

My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.

Good sense tells us that earthly things are rare and fleeting, and that true reality exists only in dreams. To draw sustenance from happiness- natural or artificial – you must first have the courage to...