Author Profile
Gustave Flaubert
1821 – 1880 • French • Novelist
71
Total Quotes
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Collected Meditations
Showing 71 quotesI hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.— Gustave Flaubert
I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.— Gustave Flaubert
It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.— 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
Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.— Gustave Flaubert
I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.— Gustave Flaubert
One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!— Gustave Flaubert
Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force.— 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
topics:
Happiness
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