We should always be drunk. That is be-all and end-all, the only choice there is. To no longer feel the horrible burden of time, which racks your shoulders and bows you downwards to the earth, you must make yourself ceaselessly drunk.
But drunk on what? wine, poetry, virtue - whichever you prefer;
only get drunk.
And if from time to time, whether on a palace stair or in the green grass of a ditch, or in the gloomy loneliness of your room, you waken with your drunkenness wearing off or already gone, then ask the wind and the waves, the stars or the birds or the clock, whatever is fleeting, whatever moans or spins or sings or speaks, ask them what time of day it is; then wind and wave and star and bird and clock will answer you: 'it is time to get drunk! so as never to be the martyred slaves of time, get drunk without respite, with wine or poetry or virtue, whichever you prefer.' Charles Baudelaire [1864]
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