Gustave Flaubert quotes - page 2

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it. (Gustave Flaubert)
One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
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. (Gustave Flaubert)
What baffled him was that there should be all this fuss about something so simple as love. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
Love, to her, was something hat comes suddenly, like a blinding flash of lightening - a heaven-sent storm hurled into life, uprooting it, sweeping every will before it like a leaf, engulfing all feelings. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
She would have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identical days began again. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
She did not believe that things could remain the same in different places, and since the portion of her life that lay behind her had been bad, no doubt that which remained to be lived would be better. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
Doesn't it seem to you," asked Madame Bovary, "that the mind moves more freely in the presence of that boundless expanse, that the sight of it elevates the soul and gives rise to thoughts of the infinite and the ideal? View quote
Gustave Flaubert
The brazen arms were working more quickly. They paused no longer. Every time that a child was placed in them the priests of Moloch spread out their hands upon him to burden him with the crimes of the people, vociferating: "They are not men but oxen!" and the multitude round about repeated: "Oxen! oxen!" The devout exclaimed: "Lord! Eat!" (Gustave Flaubert)
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings. View quote
Gustave Flaubert
Success is a consequence and must not be a goal. View quote
Gustave Flaubert