Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) was a French poet, essayist, and critic. The British poet and essayist T. S. Eliot once said that Baudelaire was “the greatest exemplar in modern poetry in any language.” Such admiration is even more extraordinary considering Baudelaire’s whole works consist merely of a single volume of poetry, a book of prose poems, criticism, and three volumes of translations of the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
Baudelaire had an unhappy life. He was born to a wealthy family in Paris; but when his father died when he was six, he revolted under the stern discipline of his stepfather. He got expelled from military school and squandered much of his inheritance on clothes, sex, and drugs. When Baudelaire turned 21, his family, worried about his eccentric behavior and debts, got a court order to seize the remainder of his inheritance and disbursed it in small allowances for the rest of his life.
Baudelaire started writing essays, criticism, and translations to fund his indulgences. Baudelaire lived in the worst neighborhoods of Paris and switched apartments frequently to escape creditors. He struggled with poor health throughout his life and died at 46. The posthumous publication of much of his writing allowed his mother to settle his many debts.
At 36, Baudelaire published his only collection of lyric poetry, Les Fleurs de Mal (1857, The Flowers of Evil,) considered one of the greatest collections of French poetry. The book’s adulation of free love, drunkenness, world-weariness, and despair has influenced generations of bohemian artists. Baudelaire gained instant celebrity as a poète maudit (cursed poet) when six of the 101 poems in Les Fleurs de Mal were censored out for their moral and sexual themes, which were then considered obscene and scandalous.
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The habit of doing one’s duty drives away fear.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
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
Topics: Soul, Gambling
Every man who does not accept the conditions of life sells his soul.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Rejection, Acceptance
In putting off what one has to do, one runs the risk of never being able to do it.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Inaction, Getting Going, Procrastination
It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Bores, Boredom, Work
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.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Catholicism, Religion
There are moments of existence when time and space are more profound, and the awareness of existence is immensely heightened.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Awareness
The poet is like the prince of clouds|Who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer;|Exiled on the ground in the midst of jeers,|His giant wings prevent him from walking.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Poetry
Nothing can be done except little by little.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Little Things, Things, One Step at a Time
Time is an avid gambler who has no need to cheat to win every time.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Time Management
We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Time, Time Management
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.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Patient, Reality, Opportunities
A multitude of small delights constitute happiness.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Happiness
There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Beauty
Inspiration comes of working every day.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Work
Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.
—Charles Baudelaire
Topics: Thought, Reason
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