“I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful one must sense him everywhere but never see him.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“One mustn’t ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“There is no truth. There is only perception.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a monstrosity, something outside of nature.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Stupidity is something unshakable nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“One mustn’t ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful one must sense him everywhere but never see him.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“The future is the worst thing about the present.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.”
– Gustave Flaubert
“Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness nothing but faith, faith and freedom.”
– Gustave Flaubert