Gustave Flaubert Quotes

Read in order to live.

Of all lies, art is the least untrue.

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 love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

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 arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness.

Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.

Madame Bovary is myself.

Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.

Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.

Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

I love good sense above all, perhaps because I have none.

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.

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

There is no truth. There is only perception.

A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss.

I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism; it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.

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.