Here, we’ve compiled a list of the best Gustave Flaubert Quotes. Let’s look at these pieces of wisdom. We definitely have something to learn from them!
1
Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
2
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.
3
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.
4
One mustn’t ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.
5
The cult of art gives pride; one never has too much of it.
6
There is no truth. There is only perception.
7
One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.
8
What an elder sees sitting; the young can’t see standing.
9
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
10
Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.
11
I love good sense above all, perhaps because I have none.
12
The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.
13
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.
14
There is no truth. There is only perception.
15
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.
16
Read in order to live.
17
The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.
18
I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.
19
Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.
20
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.
21
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.
22
The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.
23
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
24
The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded.
25
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.
26
What an elder sees sitting; the young can’t see standing.
27
The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
28
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
29
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
30
Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.
31
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.
32
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.
33
What is the beautiful, if not the impossible.
34
The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded.
35
You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.
36
All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.
37
I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.
38
A memory is a beautiful thing, it’s almost a desire that you miss.
39
Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.
40
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.
41
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.
42
Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.
43
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
44
The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.
45
A friend who dies, it’s something of you who dies.
46
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.
47
Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal.
48
Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.
49
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.
50
It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.
51
One mustn’t ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.
52
The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.
53
One mustn’t look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us.
54
Read in order to live.
55
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.
56
Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.
57
Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.
58
Madame Bovary is myself.
59
Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.
60
Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.
61
I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.
62
The future is the worst thing about the present.
63
The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts.
64
A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.
65
Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.
66
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
