“Nature is a temple where living columns
Let slip from time to time uncertain words;
Man finds his way through forests of symbols
Which regard him with familiar gazes.”

— Charles Baudelaire , book Les Fleurs du mal

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.
"Correspondances" [Correspondences] http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Correspondances
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Original

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles; L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.

Les Fleurs du mal, 1857
Variant: La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Charles Baudelaire 133

French poet 1821–1867

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