Charles Baudelaire

"The world is beautiful precisely because it is ephemeral."

"Imagination is the only weapon against the mediocrity of existence."

"The true revolutionary is he who transforms beauty into consciousness."

"Life is the art of being disappointed in elegant ways."

"The beloved is she who reflects back the best version of ourselves."

"All knowledge worth having is born from passionate curiosity."

"One should always be drunk. That's all that matters. But with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, choose your poison. The great thing is not to fall out of that ecstasy."

"I love the beautiful season when the sky rains fire and the air is transformed into something magical."

"The Devil's finest trick is persuading you that he does not exist."

"I adore the beautiful disorder of the mind, the noble confusion of the passions."

"Art is not meant to decorate apartments. It is war against brutality and darkness."

"Perfume is the poetry of smell, and smell is the sense that jumps most readily to memory."

"The Unique Virtue of Art lies in being able to show what is invisible."

"I hate the movement that shifts things around; I love the things that stay still."

"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things."

"Sensuality is the loftiest form of spirituality."

"There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery."

"To be interested in nothing is to be dead; to love nothing is to be asleep."

"The highest destiny of the writer is to be an educator and a liberator of the human spirit."

"Civilization is only a mask, and beneath it lies the beast."

"I prefer the company of the dead; they do not demand constant improvement."

"Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will."

"The soul is a terrible thing; it wants to escape everywhere."

"Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition."

"Bad habits are easily caught; good habits are hard to form."

"The obsession with novelty is the disease of our age."

"To understand everything makes one very indulgent."

"I experience an ecstasy when gazing upon a beautiful object."

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

"Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury."