Charles Baudelaire

"Music speaks directly to the heart without the intervention of reason."

"The poet is like the prince of the clouds; he dwells in storms but cannot walk on the earth."

"Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation."

"I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love."

"Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent."

"The eyes of a lover can see beauty where others see only ordinary things."

"The greatest pleasure of the imagination is to create what does not exist."

"Solitude is the mother of genuine thoughts."

"One must work, if not from inclination, then from desperation."

"Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire to change his bed."

"The supernatural is the only reality that speaks to my soul."

"Dance can reveal all the mysteries that music hides."

"The artist must be like a shark, always moving forward or dying."

"Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious."

"I am the wound and the knife; I am the slap and the cheek."

"The most civilized people are cannibals of their own kind."

"Hatred is by far the longest pleasure; men love in haste but they detest at leisure."

"Nothing can be created out of nothing; all things arise from something."

"The greatest poets are those who express the universal in the particular."

"I have felt it approach, the darkness that devours all colors."

"The truly important thing is not to think much, but to love much."

"Flowers are silent companions that speak volumes to the discerning eye."

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but fear that says its prayers and goes forward."

"The human heart has hidden treasures, in secret kept, in silence sealed."

"A single act of kindness creates infinite ripples."

"The future is a projection of our past disappointments."

"Extremes touch; there is something extreme about all perfection."

"Every man should have something that is wholly his own and cannot be taken from him."

"The greatest works are born of patience and solitude."

"In the depths of despair lies the greatest opportunity for transformation."