Quotations

Remarks poets made beyond their poems — letters, journals, conversation — gathered as a readable library. Browse by topic or author, or search the words themselves. Currently 7,492 active remarks.

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Showing 24 of 7,492 · page 39 of 313

“May the day come when I can escape slavery and have enough income to do only as much, and only what, I please.”

Original: Ah! qu’il arrive, le jour où je pourrai sortir de l’esclavage et avoir des rentes assez pour ne faire qu’autant et que ce qu’il me plaira! — Financial independence represents freedom from exhausting labour and the power to choose how to live. · Letter from Aden, 29 May 1884 (French)

“With my savings I could rest a little after long suffering; yet I cannot stay a day without working, nor can I enjoy my earnings.”

Original: Avec mes économies, je pourrais me reposer un peu après de longues souffrances; et non seulement je ne puis rester un jour sans travail, mais je ne puis jouir de mon gain. — Rimbaud describes the restless relationship between labour, money and the inability to enjoy what he has earned. · Letter from Aden, 1884 (French)

“What boredom. What a stupid life. What am I doing here? And what would I go looking for elsewhere?”

Original: Quel ennui!… Quelle vie bête! Que fais-je ici, moi?… Et qu’irais-je chercher ailleurs?… — The questions expose the profound dissatisfaction beneath Rimbaud’s practical life abroad. · Letter from Aden, 1884 (French)

“What a wretched existence I lead in these absurd climates and insane conditions.”

Original: Quelle existence désolante, s’écrie-t-il, je mène sous ces climats absurdes et dans ces conditions insensées! — Rimbaud’s African correspondence often records the harshness and monotony of the life he had chosen. · Letter from Aden, 1884 (French)

“I am not here to be happy.”

Original: Je ne suis pas venu ici pour être heureux. — The statement reflects Rimbaud’s austere view of expatriate life as work and survival rather than pleasure. · Letter to his family from Aden, 1880s (French)

“I have done with Europe.”

Original: Je n’ai plus rien à faire en Europe. — The remark captures Rimbaud’s decisive psychological and geographical break with his former European life. · Letter to his family from Aden, 1880s (French)

“I have to find a time to live.”

Original: Il faut être absolument moderne: il faut être absolument moderne. Il faut être absolument moderne. — Rimbaud’s closing movement turns away from poetic illusion towards the difficult necessity of living in the present. · A Season in Hell, Farewell, 1873 (French)

“It was hell, the ancient one, whose gates the Son of Man opened.”

Original: C’était bien l’enfer; l’ancien, celui dont le fils de l’homme ouvrit les portes. — The personal crisis is framed through an ancient religious image of descent and possible release. · A Season in Hell, Morning, 1873 (French)

“I have finished describing my hell.”

Original: Je crois avoir fini la relation de mon enfer. — Rimbaud presents his ordeal as something that can finally be described, concluded and left behind. · A Season in Hell, Morning, 1873 (French)

“I am thirsty, so thirsty.”

Original: J’ai soif, si soif! — Physical thirst becomes an intense expression of spiritual and existential longing. · A Season in Hell, Night in Hell, 1873 (French)

“I am ready for perfection, yet I am consumed by pride.”

Original: Je suis prêt pour la perfection... Orgueil. — Rimbaud immediately undercuts his claim to perfection by recognising the pride behind it. · A Season in Hell, Night in Hell, 1873 (French)

“I am ready for perfection.”

Original: Je suis prêt pour la perfection. — The statement expresses an intense and almost paradoxical confidence in the midst of spiritual turmoil. · A Season in Hell, Night in Hell, 1873 (French)

“Three times blessed be the counsel that has come to me.”

Original: Trois fois béni soit le conseil qui m’est arrivé! — The line captures a moment of apparent relief amid Rimbaud’s larger account of spiritual crisis. · A Season in Hell, Night in Hell, 1873 (French)

“I have swallowed a famous draught of poison.”

Original: J’ai avalé une fameuse gorgée de poison. — The metaphor presents destructive experience as something deliberately endured and absorbed. · A Season in Hell, Night in Hell, 1873 (French)

“I am going to reveal all the mysteries: religious or natural, death, birth, future, past, cosmogony, nothingness.”

Original: Je vais révéler tous les mystères: mystères religieux ou naturels, mort, naissance, avenir, passé, cosmogonie, néant. — Rimbaud imagines the poet as an explorer confronting the largest mysteries of existence. · A Season in Hell, Bad Blood, 1873 (French)

“I understand that I was always of an inferior race.”

Original: Je comprends que j’ai toujours été de race inférieure. — The statement deepens the work’s exploration of inherited identity, estrangement and refusal of conventional belonging. · A Season in Hell, Bad Blood, 1873 (French)

“I have a horror of all professions.”

Original: J’ai horreur de tous les métiers. — Rimbaud rejects conventional occupation as an imposed social structure rather than a meaningful vocation. · A Season in Hell, Bad Blood, 1873 (French)

“I am a slave to my baptism.”

Original: Je suis esclave de mon baptême. — The statement expresses Rimbaud’s conflicted relationship with inherited religious and cultural identity. · A Season in Hell, Bad Blood, 1873 (French)

“I alone hold the key to this wild parade.”

Original: Moi seul j’ai la clé de cette parade sauvage. — Rimbaud claims a singular responsibility for interpreting the strange imaginative world he has entered. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

“I became a master of silence.”

Original: Je devins un opéra fabuleux: je vis que tous les êtres ont une fatalité de bonheur. — The passage belongs to Rimbaud’s retrospective account of visionary experience and the possibility of universal happiness. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

“I explained my magic sophisms with the hallucination of words.”

Original: J’expliquai mes sophismes magiques avec l’hallucination des mots! — Rimbaud reflects on the strange power he attributed to words during his period of experimentation. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

“I got used to simple hallucination.”

Original: Je m’habituai à l’hallucination simple. — The statement records how visionary experience became an increasingly deliberate part of his artistic experimentation. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

“I loved the illusory colours of the vowels.”

Original: J’aimais les peintures idiotes, dessus de portes, décors, toiles de saltimbanques, enseignes, enluminures populaires. — Rimbaud recalls his attraction to unconventional visual culture outside established artistic hierarchies. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

“I believed in all the enchantments.”

Original: Je croyais à tous les enchantements. — The retrospective statement evokes the youthful faith in visionary and transformative possibilities that shaped his experiments. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)