Gustave Flaubert quotes - page 5

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. (Gustave Flaubert)
Style is as much under the words as in the words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh of a work.
Gustave Flaubert
The cult of art gives pride; one never has too much of it.
Gustave Flaubert
And he beholds the moon; like a rounded fragment of ice filled with motionless light.
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
One day, I shall explode like an artillery shell and all my bits will be found on the writing table.
Gustave Flaubert
Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resemblance.
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
Better to work for yourself alone. You do as you like and follow your own ideas, you admire yourself and please yourself: isn't that the main thing? And then the public is so stupid. Besides, who reads? And what do they read? And what do they admire?
Gustave Flaubert
I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.
Gustave Flaubert
Madame Bovary is myself. (Gustave Flaubert)
For some men, the stronger their desire, the more difficult it is for them to act.
Gustave Flaubert
Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.
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
When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women.
Gustave Flaubert
Isn't ‘not to be bored' one of the principal goals of life?
Gustave Flaubert
Maybe happiness too is a metaphor invented on a day of boredom.
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
I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.
Gustave Flaubert
What is the beautiful, if not the impossible.
Gustave Flaubert
I love good sense above all, perhaps because I have none. (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 true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.
Gustave Flaubert
But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands.
Gustave Flaubert
Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers.
Gustave Flaubert