Arthur Rimbaud Quotes & Sayings

What am I doing here? — Arthur Rimbaud

On the blue summer evenings, I will go along the paths,
And walk over the short grass, as I am pricked by the wheat:
Daydreaming I will feel the coolness on my feet.
I will let the wind bathe my bare head. I will not speak,
I will have no thoughts: But infinite love will mount in my soul;
And I will go far, far off, like a gypsy,
through the countryside - as happy as if I were a woman.
Sensation — Arthur Rimbaud

I don't love women. Love has to be reinvented, we know that. The only thing women can ultimately imagine is security. Once they get that, love, beauty, everything else goes out the window. All they have left is cold disdain; that's what marriages live on nowadays. Sometimes I see women who ought to be happy, with whom I could have found companionship, already swallowed up by brutes with as much feeling as an old log ... — Arthur Rimbaud

The wolf howled under the leaves
And spit out the prettiest feathers
Of his meal of fowl:
Like him I consume myself. — Arthur Rimbaud

Priests, professors, masters, you are wrong to turn me over to Justice. I have never belonged to this people. I have never been Christian. I am of the race that sang under torture. I do not understand your laws. I have no moral sense, I am a brute. — Arthur Rimbaud

I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am. — Arthur Rimbaud

You feel on your lips a kiss Fluttering, a tiny scrap of life ... — Arthur Rimbaud

Morality is the weakness of the mind. — Arthur Rimbaud

The hallucinations are innumerable. That's what has always been the matter with me, in fact: no belief in history, obliviousness of principles. I shall say no more about this: poets and visionaries would be jealous. I am a thousand times the richest, let's be as miserly as the sea. — Arthur Rimbaud

Eternity. It is the sea mingled with the sun. — Arthur Rimbaud

I invented the colors of the vowels!
A black, E white, I red, O blue, U green
I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language accessible, some day, to all the senses. — Arthur Rimbaud

Stronger than alcohol, vaster than poetry,
Ferment the freckled red bitterness of love! — Arthur Rimbaud

Cement in bold relief, - far underground. I lean my elbows on the table, and the lamp lights brightly the newspapers I am fool enough to re-read, and the absurd books. — Arthur Rimbaud

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

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

turn your face towards the lances of rain, the soul towards ancient wisdom. And — Arthur Rimbaud

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

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. — Arthur Rimbaud

But to explore the invisible and to hear the unheard are very different from reviving the dead: Baudelaire is therefore first among seers, the king of poets, a true God. — Arthur Rimbaud

As I descended into impassable rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen. — Arthur Rimbaud

Delivered to oblivion ... growing and flowering with incense and weeds to the sullen whine of nasty flies ... I loved deserts, burnt out orchards, faded boutiques ... I dragged myself down stinking alleyways ... General, if there's an old cannon left, aim for the glass of splendid shops, into the living rooms ... make the city eat its own dust. — Arthur Rimbaud

But today I would suggest you ponder these verses from Ecclesiastes: "And he would have seven flights of madness in his soul, who, having hung his clothes beneath the sun, would groan at the hour of rain, — Arthur Rimbaud

Life is the farce we are all forced to endure. — Arthur Rimbaud

The only unbearable thing is that nothing is unbearable. — Arthur Rimbaud

In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels. — Arthur Rimbaud

O great Ariadne who pour out your tears
On the shore, as you see, out there on the waves,
The sail of Theseus flying white under the sun,
O sweet virgin child whom a night has broken,
Be silent!
-Sun and Flesh (Credo in Unam) — Arthur Rimbaud

I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; Garlands from window to window; Golden chains from star to star ... And I dance. — Arthur Rimbaud

I will never possess my hand. — Arthur Rimbaud

And from that time on I bathed in the Poem
Of the Sea, star-infused and churned into milk,
Devouring the green azures; where, entranced in pallid flotsam,
A dreaming drowned man sometimes goes down. — Arthur Rimbaud

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

The Poet makes himself a seer through a long, vast and painstaking derangement of all the senses — Arthur Rimbaud

Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge. — Arthur Rimbaud

What is my nothingness to the stupor that awaits you? — 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. — Arthur Rimbaud

The world progresses! Why shouldn't it turn as well? — Arthur Rimbaud

I came a fabulous opera. I saw that all beings have a fatality for happiness: action is not life, but a way of spending your strength, an irritation. Morality is a weakness of the brain. — Arthur Rimbaud

No one's serious at seventeen,
When lindens line the promenades — Arthur Rimbaud

The same bourgeois magic everywhere the mail train sets you down. — Arthur Rimbaud

CHILDHOOD I That idol, black eyes and yellow mop, without parents or court, nobler than Mexican and Flemish fables; his domain, insolent azure and verdure, runs over beaches called by the shipless waves, names ferociously Greek, Slav, Celt. At the border of the forest - dream flowers tinkle, flash, and flare, - the girl with orange lips, knees crossed in the clear flood that gushes from the fields, nakedness shaded, traversed, dressed by rainbow, flora, sea. Ladies who stroll on terraces adjacent to the sea; baby girls and giantesses, superb blacks in the verdigris moss, jewels upright on the rich ground of groves and little thawed gardens, - young mothers and big sisters with eyes full of pilgrimages, sultanas, princesses tyrannical of costume and carriage, little foreign misses and young ladies gently unhappy. What boredom, the hour of the "dear body" and "dear heart." II — Arthur Rimbaud

But, true, I've wept too much! Dawns break hearts./ Every moon is brutal, every sun bitter. — Arthur Rimbaud

Genius is the recovery of childhood at will. — Arthur Rimbaud

I saw that all living things were doomed, to bliss: that's not living; it's just a way to waste what we have, a drain. — Arthur Rimbaud

As of today, I rebel against death! Work seems frivolous; I'm a proud man, and a lifetime's work would be too brief an agony for me. At the last moment, I'd attack ... to the right ... to the left ... And then - oh! - sweet old soul of mine, eternity would not have been wasted on us! — Arthur Rimbaud

Hire myself out to whom? What beast must I worship? What sacred images should I destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lies am I supposed to believe? March through whose blood? — Arthur Rimbaud

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

There shall be poets! When woman's unmeasured bondage shall be broken, when she shall live for and through herself, man
hitherto detestable
having let her go, she, too, will be poet! Woman will find the unknown! Will her ideational worlds be different from ours? She will come upon strange, unfathomable, repellent, delightful things; we shall take them, we shall comprehend them. — Arthur Rimbaud

I say that one must be a visionary - that one must make oneself a VISIONARY. — Arthur Rimbaud

The northern lights rise like a kiss to the sea — Arthur Rimbaud

True life is elsewhere. We are not in the world. — Arthur Rimbaud

I found I could extinguish all human hope from my soul. — Arthur Rimbaud

Your memory and your senses will be nourishment for your creativity. — Arthur Rimbaud

You have to pass an exam, and the jobs that you get are either to shine shoes, or to herd cows, or to tend pigs. Thank God, I don't want any of that! Damn it! And besides that they smack you for a reward; they call you an animal and it's not true, a little kid, etc.. Oh! Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn! — Arthur Rimbaud

Come from forever, and you will go everywhere. — Arthur Rimbaud

Is it possible to become ecstatic amid destruction, rejuvenate oneself through cruelty? — Arthur Rimbaud

While public funds evaporate in feasts of fraternity, a bell of rosy fire rings in the clouds. — Arthur Rimbaud

Evening prayer
I spend my life sitting, like an angel in a barber's chair,
Holding a beer mug with deep-cut designs,
My neck and gut both bent, while in the air
A weightless veil of pipe smoke hangs.
Like steaming dung within an old dovecote
A thousand Dreams within me softly burn:
From time to time my heart is like some oak
Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.
And then, when I have swallowed down my Dreams
In thirty, forty mugs of beer, I turn
To satisfy a need I can't ignore,
And like the Lord of Hyssop and of Myrrh
I piss into the skies, a soaring stream
That consecrates a patch of flowering fern. — Arthur Rimbaud

The white men are landing. Cannons! Now we must be baptized, get dressed, and go to work. My heart has been stabbed by grace. Ah! I hadn't thought this would happen! — Arthur Rimbaud

Life is the farce which everyone has to perform. — Arthur Rimbaud

Let it come, let it come The time that we will love. So patient have I been That I've forgetten everything: Fear and suffering Have departed for the heavens, And an unholy thirst Darkens my veins. Let it come, let it come The time that we will love. Like the field Left to forgetfulness, Growing and flowering With incense and weeds, And the fierce buzzing Of dirty flies. Let it come, let it come The time that we will love. I loved the desert, burnt orchards, musty shops, tepid drinks. I dragged myself through stinking alleys, and with eyes closed I offered myself to the sun, the god of fire. — Arthur Rimbaud

When we are strongest- who draws back?
Most merry- who falls down laughing?
When we are very bad,- what can they do to us? — Arthur Rimbaud

I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am there. — Arthur Rimbaud

Whose hearts must I break? What lies must I maintain? - Through whose blood am I to wade ? — Arthur Rimbaud

Is it in these bottomless nights that you sleep in exile? — Arthur Rimbaud

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. — Arthur Rimbaud

I shed more tears than God could ever have required. — Arthur Rimbaud

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

I am hidden and I am not. — Arthur Rimbaud

Pagan blood returns! — Arthur Rimbaud

I have withered within me all human hope. With every silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.
I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness. — Arthur Rimbaud

The Sun, the hearth of affection and life, pours burning love on the delighted earth. — Arthur Rimbaud

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 ... — Arthur Rimbaud

A man who wants to mutilate himself is certainly damned, isn't he? — Arthur Rimbaud

By being too sensitive I have wasted my life. — Arthur Rimbaud

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? — Arthur Rimbaud

The first study for the man who wants to be a poet is knowledge of himself, complete: he searches for his soul, he inspects it, he puts it to the test, he learns it. As soon as he has learned it, he must cultivate it! I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet becomes a seer through a long, immense, and reasoned derangement of all the senses. All shapes of love suffering, madness. He searches himself, he exhausts all poisons in himself, to keep only the quintessences. Ineffable torture where he needs all his faith, all his superhuman strength, where he becomes among all men the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed one
and the supreme Scholar! For he reaches the unknown! ... So the poet is actually a thief of Fire! — Arthur Rimbaud

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. — Arthur Rimbaud

It is found again.
What? Eternity.
It is the sea
Gone with the sun. — Arthur Rimbaud

True life is elsewhere — Arthur Rimbaud

I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own. — Arthur Rimbaud

I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain. — Arthur Rimbaud

Weakness or strength: there you are, strength. You do not know where you are going, nor why you are going; enter anywhere, reply to anything. They will no more kill you than if you were a corpse. In the morning I had a look so lost, a face so dead, that perhaps those whom I met did not see me.
In cities, suddenly, the mud seemed red and black like a mirror when the lamp moves about in the adjoining room, like a treasure in the forest! Good luck, I cried, and I saw a sea of flames and smoke in the sky; to the right, to the left all the riches of the world flaming like a billion thunder-bolts. — Arthur Rimbaud

Yes, my eyes are closed to your light. I am an animal, a nigger. But I can be saved. You are fake niggers; maniacs, savages, misers, all of you. — Arthur Rimbaud

My wisdom is as spurned as chaos. What is my nothingness, compared to the amazement that awaits you? — Arthur Rimbaud

And again: No more gods! no more gods! Man is King, Man is God! - But the great Faith is Love! — Arthur Rimbaud

Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed. — Arthur Rimbaud

Romanticism has never been properly judged. Who was there to judge it? The critics! — Arthur Rimbaud

Satan, you clown, you want to dissolve me with your charms. Well, I want it. I want it! Stab me with a pitchfork, sprinkle me with fire! — Arthur Rimbaud

From castles of bone unknown music comes — Arthur Rimbaud

Unhappiness was my god. — Arthur Rimbaud

Yet this is the watch by night.
Let us all accept new strength, and
real tenderness. And at dawn, armed
with glowing patience, we will enter
the cities of glory. — Arthur Rimbaud

I'm intact, and I don't give a damn. — Arthur Rimbaud

I went out under the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal. — Arthur Rimbaud

True alchemy lies in this formula: 'Your memory and your senses are but the nourishment of your creative impulse'. — Arthur Rimbaud

I am alone in possessing a key to this barbarous sideshow. — Arthur Rimbaud

I'm now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working at turning myself into a seer. You won't understand any of this, and I'm almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It's really not my fault. — Arthur Rimbaud

Madame X set up a piano in the Alps. — Arthur Rimbaud

This lofty thought proves I dreamt it! — Arthur Rimbaud

I wrote silences; nights; I recorded the unnameable. — Arthur Rimbaud

These verses believe; they love; they hope; that is all. — Arthur Rimbaud

As for me, I am intact; and I don't care. — Arthur Rimbaud