Charles Baudelaire

France
9 Apr 1821 // 31 Aug 1867
Poet / Critic / Translator

Imagination and Virtue

Imagination is the queen of truth, and possibility is one of the regions of truth. She is positively akin to infinity. Without her, all the faculties, sound and acute though they may be, seem nonexistent; whereas the weakness of some secondary faculties is a minor misfortune if stimulated by a vigorous imagination. None of them could do without her, and she is able to compensate for some of the others. Often what they look for, finding it only after a series of attempts by several methods not adapted to the nature of things, she intuits, proudly and simply. Lastly, she plays a role even in morality; for, allow me to go so far as to say, what is virtue without imagination?

Charles Baudelaire, in "Salon de 1859"
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