Gustave Flaubert Quotes

But some day sooner or later our passion would have cooled - inevitably - it's the way with everything human.

Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.

What baffled him was that there should be all this fuss about something so simple as love.

The principal thing in the world is to keep the soul aloft.

I have patience in all things - as far as the antechamber.

The finest works of art are those in which there is the least matter. The closer expression comes to thought, the more the word clings to the idea and disappears, the more beautiful the work of art.

L'Ide e seule est e ternelle et ne cessaire. The idea alone is eternal and necessary.

COLD. Healthier than heat.

Be orderly and disciplined in daily life, like a good bourgeois, so that I might be wild and violent in my art.

Sometimes I think I'm liquefying like an old Camembert.

The citadel of Machaerus rose east of the Dead Sea on a basalt Peak shaped like a cone, girdled by four deep valleys; two about its sides, one in front, and the fourth behind.

Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles.

Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal. I've never sought it (though I desire it) and seek it less and less.

As words have an effective power of their own, curses reported against someone might turn against the speaker.

A rich woman seems to have all her banknotes about her, guarding her virtue, like a cuirass, in the lining of her corset.

Farming -- a vocation accursed of heaven, since one never saw a millionaire involved in it.

Je suis autant Chinois que Fran c° ais. I am as much Chinese as French.

Let us not kid ourselves; let us remember that literature is of no use whatever, except in the very special case of somebody's wishing to become, of all things, a Professor of Literature.

Speech is a rolling press that always amplifies one's emotions.

I am finding it very hard to get my novel started. I suffer from stylistic abscesses; and sentences keep itching without coming to a head.

The great natures which are good, are above everything generous and don't begrudge the giving of themselves.

The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.

The morality of art is in its very beauty.

We should not touch our idols: their gilding will remain on our hands.

But the most wretched thing, is it not-is to drag out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice.

Iced champagne was served, and the feel of the cold wine in her mouth gave Emma a shiver that ran over her from head to toe.

Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century.

I do not like to "interest" the public with myself.

Emma was no asleep, she was pretending to be asleep; and, while he was dozing off at her side, she lay awake, dreaming other dreams.

And the more he was irritated by her basic personality, the more he was drawn to her by a harsh, besti*l sensuality, illusions of a moment, which ended in hate.

Alas! It seems to me that when one is as good as this at dissecting children who are to born, one can’t stiffen up enough to create them.

The world is going to become bloody stupid and from now on will be a very boring place. We’re lucky to be living now.

I have patience in all things – as far as the antechamber.

Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.

I grew up in a hospital and as a child I played in the dissecting room

The smooth folds of her dress concealed a tumultuous heart, and her modest lips told nothing of her torment. She was in love.

An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.

Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living.

The artist must manage to make posterity believe that he never existed.

But that which fanaticism formerly promised to the elect, science now accomplishes for all men.

An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space.

Sometimes, in a daze, they completely dismantled the cadaver, then found themselves hard put to it to fit the pieces together again.

How badly arranged the world is. What is the purpose of ugliness, suffering, sadness? Why our powerless dreams? Why everything?

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeoisie.

The morality of art consists, for everyone, in the side that flatters its own interests. People do not like literature.

...those works that don't touch the heart, it seems to me, miss the true aim of Art.

Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

People believe a little too easily that the function of the sun is to help the cabbages along.

...and the country is like a great unfolded mantle with a green velvet cape bordered with a fringe of silver.