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.

— Charles Baudelaire

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

— Charles Baudelaire

In putting off what one has to do one runs the risk of never being able to do it.

— Charles Baudelaire

Inspiration comes of working every day.

— Charles Baudelaire

I set out to discover the why of it, and to transform my pleasure into knowledge.

— Charles Baudelaire

I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.

— Charles Baudelaire

I sit in the sky like a sphinx misunderstood; My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans; I hate the movement that displaces the rigid lines, With lips untaught neither tears nor laughter do I know.

— Charles Baudelaire

Isn't it true that a pleasant house makes winter more poetic, and doesn't winter add to the poetry of a house?

— Charles Baudelaire

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.

— Charles Baudelaire

It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.

— Charles Baudelaire