Arthur Rimbaud Quotes

Arthur Rimbaud delivers sly, vivid poetry that drifts through nature and feeling like a dream.

41 quotes

1. J'allais sous le ciel, Muse! et j'etais ton feal.

2. Mon auberge etait a la Grande-Ourse. Mes etoiles au ciel avaient un doux frou-frou.

3. Mon triste coeur bave a la poupe.

4. A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu: voyelles, Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes!

5. Elle est retrouvee, Quoi? - L'Eternite. C'est la mer allee Avec le soleil.

6. O saisons, o chateaux, Quelle ame est sans defauts?

7. J'ai embrasse l'aube d'ete.

8. Il pleut doucement sur la ville.

9. Je dis qu'il faut etre voyant, se faire voyant. Le poete se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonne dereglement de tous les sens.

10. Plus leger qu'un bouchon j'ai danse sur les flots.

11. Plus douce qu'aux enfants la chair des pommes sures, L'eau verte penetra ma coque de sapin.

12. Je me suis baigne dans le Poeme De la Mer... Devorant les azurs verts.

13. J'ai vu le soleil bas, tache d'horreurs mystiques, Illuminant de longs figements violets, Pareils a des acteurs de drames tres-antiques.

14. J'ai vu des archipels sideraux! et des iles Dont les cieux delirants sont ouverts au vogueur: Est-ce en ces nuits sans fond que tu dors et t'exiles, Million d'oiseaux d'or, o future Vigueur?

15. Un soir, j'ai assis la Beaute sur mes genoux. - Et je l'ai trouvee amere. - Et je l'ai injuriee.

16. Je parvins a faire s'evanouir dans mon esprit toute l'esperance humaine.

17. La vie est la farce a mener par tous.

18. Jadis, si je me souviens bien, ma vie etait un festin ou s'ouvraient tous les coeurs, ou tous les vins coulaient.

19. Je suis esclave de mon bapteme.

20. La vieillerie poetique avait une bonne part dans mon alchimie du verbe.

21. Moi ! moi qui me suis dit mage ou ange, dispense de toute morale, je suis rendu au sol.

22. Il faut etre absolument moderne.

23. The only unbearable thing is that nothing is unbearable.

24. . . . be absolute moderne.

25. Here I am on the shore of Brittany. Let the cities light up in the evening. My day is done. I am leaving Europe. The sea air will burn my lungs. Lost climates will tan me. I will swim, trample the grass, hung, and smoke especially. I will drink alcohol as strong as boiling metal--just as my dear ancestors did around their fires.

26. Once, if I remember well, my life was a feast where all hearts opened and all wines flowed.

27. Faith assuages, guides, restores.

28. The poet makes himself a voyant through a long, immense reasoned deranging of all his senses. All the forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he tries to find himself, he exhausts in himself all the poisons, to keep only their quintessences.

29. Eternity. It is the sea mingled with the sun. ... L'éternité.

30. To whom shall I hire myself out? What beast should I adore? What holy image is attacked? What hearts shall I break? What lies shall I uphold? In what blood tread?

31. Genius is the recovery of childhood at will.

32. It was the voice of mad seas, roaring immense,/ That shattered your infant breast, too soft, too human.

33. Now I am an outcast. I loathe my country. The best thing for me is a drunken sleep on the beach.

34. Stronger than alcohol, vaster than poetry, Ferment the freckled red bitterness of love!

35. Eternity. It is the sea mingled with the sun.

36. I went out under the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal.

37. Love...no such thing. Whatever it is that binds families and married couples together, that's not love. That's stupidity or selfishness or fear. Love doesn't exist. Self interest exists, attachment based on personal gain exists, complacency exists. But not love. Love has to be reinvented, that’s certain.

38. Weakness or strength: you exist, that is strength. You don't know where you are going or why you are going, go in everywhere, answer everyone. No one will kill you, any more than if you were a corpse.

39. Oh! If only we were naked now, and free to watch our protruding parts align; To whisper - both of us - in ecstasy!

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

41. What an old maid I'm getting to be. lacking the courage to be in love with death!