French Poetry Quotes

“Liberty

On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand, on the snow
I write your name

On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name

On the golden images
On the soldier’s weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name

On the jungle, the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name

On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name

On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name

On the fields, the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name


On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name

On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name

On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name

On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name

On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed’s empty shell
I write your name

On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name

On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire’s sacred stream
I write your name

On all flesh that’s in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name

On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name

On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name

On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name

On health that’s regained
On danger that’s past
On hope without memories
I write your name

By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you

LIBERTY”
― Paul Éluard

“No one's serious at seventeen,
When lindens line the promenades”
― Arthur Rimbaud

“Dreams, always dreams! and the more ambitious and delicate is the soul, the more its dreams bear it away from possibility. Each man carries in himself his dose of natural opium, incessantly secreted and renewed. From birth to death, how many hours can we count that are filled by positive enjoyment, by successful and decisive action? Shall we ever live, shall we ever pass into this picture which my soul has painted, this picture which resembles you?

These treasures, this furniture, this luxury, this order, these perfumes, these miraculous flowers, they are you. Still you, these mighty rivers and these calm canals! These enormous ships that ride upon them, freighted with wealth, whence rise the monotonous songs of their handling: these are my thoughts that sleep or that roll upon your breast. You lead them softly towards that sea which is the Infinite; ever reflecting the depths of heaven in the limpidity of your fair soul; and when, tired by the ocean's swell and gorged with the treasures of the East, they return to their port of departure, these are still my thoughts enriched which return from the Infinite - towards you.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Aleister Crowley

“Ce fut le temps sous de clairs ciels,
(Vous en souvenez-vous, Madame?)
De baisers superficiels
Et des sentiments à fleur d'âme.

It was a time of cloudless skies,
(My lady, do you recall?)
Of kisses that brushed the surface
And feelings that shook the soul.”
― Paul Verlaine, Fêtes galantes / Romances sans paroles / Poèmes saturniens

“I have drunk you and my thirst survives
But now I know the flavor of the cosmos”
― Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools

“En la forest de Longue Attente
chevauchant par divers sentiers
m'en voys, ceste année présente
où voyage de Desiriers.
Devant sont aller mes fourriers
pour appareiller mon logis
en la Cité de Destinée.
Et pout mon cœur et moy ont pris
l'ostellerie de Pensée.

Dedans mon livre de pensée
j'ay trouvé escripvant mon cœur
la vraie histoire de douleur
de larmes toute enluminée.

In het Woud van Lang Verwachten
te paard op pad, dolenderwijs,
zie ik mijzelf dit jaar bij machte
tot Verlangens' verre reis.
Mijn knechtstoet is vooruitgegaan
om 't nachtverblijf vast te bereiden,
vond in Bestemming's Stad gereed
voor dit mijn hart, en mij ons beiden,
de herberg, die Gedachte heet.

In 't boek van mijn gepeinzen al
vond ik dan, schrijvende, mijn hart;
het waar verhaal van bitt're smart
verlucht met tranen zonder tal.

Charles d'Orléans”
― Hella S. Haasse, In a Dark Wood Wandering: A Novel of the Middle Ages

“Върху варосания бял таван на стаята му прелетяха две-три птици, но блясъкът им се стопи в съня му.
Сега увисналият лунен пейзаж се вдига и разгъва ароматните си цветове над нашия герой. И той излиза, светещ от студа, завинаги обърнал гръб на пролетта, която повече не съществува.”
― Рьоне Шар, Поезия. Избрано

“Живее само моето подобие, приятелка или приятел, което може да ме разбуди от вцепенението ми, да разедини поезията, да ме отправи срещу границите на старата пустиня, за да триумфирам. Никой друг. Нито небесата, нито ощастливената земя, нито нещата, над които треперим.
Факел, аз танцувам само с теб.”
― Рьоне Шар, Поезия. Избрано

“La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles ;
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.”
― charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

“It seemed that his spontaneous roaming was a well-planned learning expedition. I suspect that his rebellion and degeneracy were also premeditated. Apparently, they were a kind of intellectual rule, akin to a monastic rule, designed to lead to enlightenment. Unfortunately, his study curriculum also involved a significant degree of self-destruction as the fastest path to self-discovery.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“On that September Sunday, when the excited Paul went to meet Rimbaud, the worst began. Young Rimbaud, that great talent, that poetic genius whom all of Paris supposedly awaited, must have missed Paul at the train station because he arrived alone. To our astonishment, maman and I did not see any genius but rather an uncouth and unkempt boy in shabby, dirty attire, who spoke strangely with an Ardennes accent, if he spoke at all, for he hardly said anything. He had no luggage, which raised suspicion with my mother. A person without luggage was not to be trusted. But he had beautiful blue eyes that looked shy, or so I thought at the time. Meanwhile, those innocent eyes gazed at the world cunningly and maliciously, as it would soon become apparent. Behind that childlike, pretty face of a doll hid a corrupted monster that shattered our family happiness.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“Finalement finalement
Il nous fallut bien du talent
Pour être vieux sans être adultes
(Extrait de 'La chanson des vieux amants')”
― Jacques Brel, Jacques Brel - L'oeuvre Integrale

“The Abduction refers to an autobiographical event in Al-Masri’s life. When, as a young Arab
woman living in France, she decides to separate from her husband with whom she has a child,
the father kidnaps the baby and returns to Syria. The Abduction is the story of a woman who is
denied the basic right to raise her child. Al-Masri won’t see her son for thirteen years. These are
haunting poems of love, despair, and hope in a delicate, profound and powerful book on
intimacy, a mother’s rights, war, exile, and freedom.”
― Helene Cardona, The Abduction

“parler
faire pierre de la face, pour la dilapider”
― Daniel Blanchard, Idéal portrait

“Arthur was six years old when I left the family. Due to my infrequent stays at home, we did not form a strong bond. Occasionally, I longed for the lost fatherhood. Did he long for his lost childhood?
I did not have a chance to tell him about the sea in which the stars float, about the red, fiery sunrises and sunsets, about the storm that tosses a ship like a nutshell, about flocks of screeching seagulls, schools of fish, and picturesque islets. I wanted to spin a tale about life in the desert, about the scorching sand burning the feet and the hot air shimmering with strange mirages. About wild, freedom-loving people, bizarre customs, and exotic beasts.
I remember him squatting over a puddle at dusk.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“Not long after, a response came. Verlaine invited Rimbaud to Paris. He sent along a one-way ticket. Paris was waiting for the young genius. It was about time. Arthur’s mother had had enough of him, and her ultimatum was running out: either he would find a job or he would be out on the street. He was almost seventeen and was neither in job nor in education, even though peace had come, and the school had reopened its doors.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“Paul went to pick him up at the train station, but they must have failed to meet because Rimbaud came on his own, on foot. I expected him to be similar to my beloved romantic poets. Beautiful and childishly pure like Alfred de Musset. Or divinely handsome like Lamartine, with the appearance of a Greek god. Or manly and strikingly comely like Chateaubriand, gazing at the sea as the breeze blows his long curls of hair. As a young girl, I was in love with the poetry of our bards and their portraits.
Meanwhile, here in front of our well-kept house, I saw a sloppy rascal in tattered clothes, with disheveled hair, a sweaty face, and no luggage! I was itching to ask: and where is your Sunday garb? A change of underwear? Toothbrush, clothes brush, shoe brush, handkerchief, comb? Well, call me overly idealistic, but I genuinely believed that a normal person couldn’t do without these things.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“Because even though the portrait itself is interesting, I don’t look very favorable in it. I resemble Jesus Christ after twenty years of drinking absinthe. I have serious, sadly drooping eyes and the pale, emaciated face of a consumptive. Pastel colors have been set free, fluttering like butterflies. At first glance, they seem to have no fixed place on the canvas, only the gaze of the observer can pin them down. They are soft and resonate chromatically.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“What raises my doubts, and what still troubles and haunts me, is a sort of deliberate lack of precision in the sonnet “Vowels,” or perhaps even a conscious casualness and some subversion lurking in this masterpiece, undermining my theory in a perfidious way, as I have reason to suspect that Rimbaud couldn’t care less whether “A” was black or white.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“The conclusions of the medical examination of the accused Verlaine, conducted by doctors Semal and Vlemincks, the court also considered an aggravating circumstance. The medical report states that Verlaine’s penis is short and thin, and the glans is small and tapers toward the tip, which would indicate active pederasty. The rectum can be easily dilated by slightly parting the buttocks to a depth of about three centimeters. In this way, the enlarged infundibulum is exposed, resembling a truncated cone with a concave top. Although the sphincter folds contract almost normally, passive pederasty is also highly probable.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!

“Living among the wild blacks, for whom killing a man is like spitting, and killing a white man elevates the status of a warrior, was a balm to me, soothing the unbearable pain of an existence based on convention, the Ten Commandments, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In Africa, I took a few lives by my own hand, but it was either in self-defense or to protect valuable cargo I was transporting. I don’t count the slaves traveling with the caravan because they always dropped like flies and were worth less than camels.”
― Dariusz Radziejewski, Adieu, Rimbaud!