Words matter. These are the best Gustave Flaubert Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.
The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.
I love good sense above all, perhaps because I have none.
Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.
Writing is a dog’s life, but the only life worth living.
I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.
A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.
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.
One mustn’t look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us.
I love good sense above all, perhaps because I have none.
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.
I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.
Writing is a dog’s life, but the only life worth living.
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.
Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.
Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.
The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.
Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.
Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.
The future is the worst thing about the present.
Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.
The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
The future is the worst thing about the present.
Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.
A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.
The cult of art gives pride; one never has too much of it.
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.
One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.
Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.
Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.
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.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.
One mustn’t look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us.
It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.
I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.
I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.
I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
Exuberance is better than taste.
A memory is a beautiful thing, it’s almost a desire that you miss.
Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.
One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!
One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.
What is the beautiful, if not the impossible.
Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.
There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.
Read in order to live.
One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought!
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.
A friend who dies, it’s something of you who dies.
I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.
One mustn’t always believe that feeling is everything. In the arts, it is nothing without form.
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.
One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.
Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
Read much, but not many books.
The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.
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.
A memory is a beautiful thing, it’s almost a desire that you miss.
The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.
Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.
Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal.
Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.
The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts.
What is the beautiful, if not the impossible.
Of all possible debauches, traveling is the greatest that I know; that’s the one they invented when they got tired of all the others.
Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.
One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.
The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded.
Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal.
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.
Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.
The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
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.
