Charles Baudelaire

"L'étude du beau est un duel où l'artiste crie de frayeur avant d'être vaincu."

"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."

"Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty."

"The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs."

"My love, do you recall the object which we saw,That fair, sweet, summer morn!At a turn in the path a foul carcassOn a gravel strewn bed,Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,Burning and dripping with poisons,Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant wayIts belly, swollen with gases."

"The mainspring of genius is curiosity."

"Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction."