Conor

“I sincerely believe that the best criticism is the criticism that is entertaining and poetic; not a cold analytical type of criticism, which, claiming to explain everything, is devoid of hatred and love, and deliberately rids itself of any trace of feeling, but, since a fine painting is nature reflected by an artist, the best critical study, I repeat, will be the one that is that painting reflected by an intelligent and sensitive mind. Thus the best accounts of a picture may well be a sonnet or an elegy . . . But that type of criticism is destined for books of poetry and for readers of poetry. As to criticism proper, I hope philosophers will understand what I am about to say: to be in focus, in other words to justify itself, criticism must be partial, passionate, political, that is to say it must adopt an exclusive point of view, provided always the one adopted opens up the widest horizons.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“In this respect you, unworthy companion of my sad life, resemble the public, to whom one must never present the delicate scents that only exasperate them, but instead give them only dung, chosen with care.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Paris Spleen

“Life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed by the desire of changing his bed. One would prefer to suffer near the fire, and another is certain he would get well if he were by the window.”
― Charles Baudelaire

“The saddest thing is that every love has an unhappy ending, and all the more unhappy in proportion to how divinely it began, with what wings it first took flight.”
― Charles Baudelaire, La Fanfarlo