Friday, February 15, 2008

One should always be drunk.

One should always be drunk. That's the one thing that matters. In order not to feel the horrible burden of Time, which breaks your shoulders, and crushes you to the ground, one should be drunk without ceasing.

But on what? On wine, on poetry or on virtue, as it suits you. But get drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the lonely gloom of your room, you wake up, the drunkenness already abated or completely gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that flies or groans or rolls or sings or speaks, ask everything what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer: 'Time to get drunk. In order not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk. Get drunk ceaselessly. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as it suits you.'

Charles Baudelaire.

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