Arthur Rimbaud

“...these poets here, you see, they are not of this world:let them live their strange life; let them be cold and hungry, let them run, love and sing: they are as rich as Jacques Coeur, all these silly children, for they have their souls full of rhymes, rhymes which laugh and cry, which make us laugh or cry: Let them live: God blesses all the merciful: and the world blesses the poets.”

“Hacía ya mucho tiempo que me vanagloriaba de poseer todos los paisajes posibles, y que se me antojaban irrisorias todas las celebridades de la pintura y de la poesía moderna.Me gustaban las pinturas idiotas: adornos de puertas, decorados, telones de saltimbancos, emblemas, estampas populares; la literatura pasada de moda: latín de iglesia, libros eróticos ignorantes de la ortografía, novelas de nuestras abuelas, cuentos de hadas, libritos infantiles, viejas óperas, estribillos bobos, ritmos ingenuos.Soñaba con cruzadas, viajes de exploración cuya crónica no nos ha llegado, repúblicas sin historia, guerras de religión sofocadas, revoluciones de costumbres, desplazamientos de razas y continentes: creía en todos los encantamientos.”

“Elle est retrouvée!Quoi? -l'Éternité.C'est la mer alléeAvec le soleil.”

“I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; Garlands from window to window; Golden chains from star to star ... And I dance.”

“I is another. If the brass wakes the trumpet, it’s not its fault. That’s obvious to me: I witness the unfolding of my own thought: I watch it, I hear it: I make a stroke with the bow: the symphony begins in the depths, or springs with a bound onto the stage.If the old imbeciles hadn’t discovered only the false significance of Self, we wouldn’t have to now sweep away those millions of skeletons which have been piling up the products of their one-eyed intellect since time immemorial, and claiming themselves to be their authors!”

“Je vu quelques fois, ce que l'homme à cru voir”

“Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien : Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,Par la Nature, -- heureux comme avec une femme.”

“I'm intact, and I don't give a damn.”

“Kesän sinisinä iltoina kulkisin polkuja, vehnän raapimana, tallaisin hentoa ruohoa; mietteissäni tuntisin tuoreuden jaloissani. Antaisin tuulen huuhtoa hiuksiani. En puhuisi, en ajattelisi mitään: mutta loputon rakkaus kohoaisi sydämeeni, ja menisin kauas, kovin kauas niinkuin mustalainen, luontoon - onnellisena, kuin naisen kanssa.”

“I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul.”

“Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.”

“I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.”

“As I descended into impassable rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen.”

“À l'aurore, armés d'une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes. (In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities.)”

“What am I doing here?”

“In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.”

“Blood was flowing – in Bluebeard’s house, in the abattoirs, in the circuses where God had set his seal to whiten the windows. Blood and Milk flowed together.”

“L'aube exalteé ainsi qu'un peuple de colombes, et j'ai vu quelquefois ce que l'homme a cru voir!(And dawn, exalted like a host of doves - and then I've seen what men believe they've seen!)”

“True alchemy lies in this formula: ‘Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse’.”

“La musique savante manque à notre désir”

“Il faut être absolument moderne”

“Ciel ! Amour ! Liberté ! Quel rêve, ô pauvre Folle!Tu te fondais à lui comme une neige au feu”

“He would say, "How funny it will all seem, all you've gone through, when I'm not here anymore, when you no longer feel my arms around your shoulders, nor my heart beneath you, nor this mouth on your eyes, because I will have to go away some day, far away..." And in that instant I could feel myself with him gone, dizzy with fear, sinking down into the most horrible blackness: into death.”

“I saw myself before an infuriated mob, facing the firing squad, weeping out of pity for the evil they could not understand, and forgiving!-Like Jeanne d'Arc!-'Priests, professors, masters, you are making a mistake in turning me over to the law. I have never belonged to this people; I have never been a Christian; I am of the race that sang under torture; laws I have never understood; I have no moral sense, I am a brute: you are making a mistake.'Yes, my eyes are closed to your light. I am a beast, a nigger. But I can be saved. You are sham niggers, you, maniacs, fiends, misers. Merchant, you are a nigger; Judge, you are a nigger; General, you are a nigger; Emperor, old itch, you are a nigger: you have drunk of the untaxed liquor of Satan's still.-Fever and cancer inspire this people. Cripples and old men are so respectable they are fit to be boiled.-The smartest thing would be to leave this continent where madness stalks to provide hostages for these wretches. I enter the true kingdom of the children of Ham.”

“All day long he was docile, intelligent, good, Though sometimes changing to a darker mood. He seemed hypocritical, could tell better lies, in the dark he saw dots of colors behind closed eyes, clenched fists, put his tongue out at his elder brother.”

“The poet, therefore, is truly the thief of fire.He is responsible for humanity, for animals even; he will have to make sure his visions can be smelled, fondled, listened to; if what he brings back from beyond has form, he gives it form; if it has none, he gives it none. A language must be found…of the soul, for the soul and will include everything: perfumes, sounds colors, thought grappling with thought”

“But the problem is to make the soul into a monster”

“Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.”

“But I've just noticed that my mind is asleep.”

“Quand le monde sera réduit en un seul bois noir pour nos quatre yeux étonnés, - en une plage pour deux enfants fidèles, - en une maison musicale pour notre claire sympathie, - je vous trouverai.”

“Mais vrai, j'ai trop pleuré. Les Aubes sont navrantes. Toute lune est atroce et tout soleil amer: L'âcre amour m'a gonflé de torpeurs enivrantes. O que ma quille éclate! O que j'aille à la mer!”

“In the morning I had a look so lost, a face so dead, that perhaps those whom I met did not see me.- Bad Blood”

“A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed--and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and if, demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!”

“Then you'll feel your cheek scratched...A little kiss, like a crazy spider,Will run round your neck... And you'll say to me : "Find it !" bending your head- And we'll take a long time to find that creature- Which travels a lot...”

“I is another.”

“I understand, and not knowing how to express myself without pagan words, I’d rather remain silent”

“I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still.”

“But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.”