Be Drunk — Charles Baudelaire

One must always be drunk. That is all: it is the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time that breaks your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunk without respite. But drunk on what? On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you please. But be drunk. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dreary solitude of your room, you wake again, the drunkenness already lessened or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock; ask everything that flees, everything that groans, that rolls, that sings, that speaks; ask what hour it is. And the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer: 'It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be drunk; be drunk without ceasing! On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you please.'