Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

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The morality of art lies in its very beauty.

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The memory: ...hope turned upside down: you look at the bottom of the well as you would look at the top of the mountain.

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The Master must be present in his creation, just as God is present in the Universe: invisible, and everywhere.

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I would die laughing at how one man judges another, if this sight did not move me to pity.

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To have talent, you must be sure that you can master it.

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The more humanity progresses, the more scientific art will become.

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The main dignity of a writer is that he knows what not to write.

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Women don't really trust men in general and they trust specific men too much.

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When you get old, habits become tyrants.

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It used to be thought that sugar cane was the only source of sugar, but now sugar is extracted from almost everything. It will be the same with poetry: we will take it out of everything, because it is everywhere and in everything. There is not an atom of matter that does not contain poetry.

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Every soul is judged by the breadth of its aspirations.

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All that is beautiful is moral.

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Everything wears away, even pain.

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The progress we can hope for is to make people a little less evil.

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Being stupid, selfish and having good health - these are the three necessary conditions to be happy. If the first condition is missing, the others are useless.

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The future worries us, but the past keeps us grounded. This is why the present escapes our sight.

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I love to love, I love to hate.

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We have lost faith even in vices.

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Perseverance eases our lot.

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Form and content are two categories that never exist separately from each other.

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Precision of thought guarantees precision of expression.

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What is well written never bores us. Style is life itself, it is the blood of thought.

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What is misunderstood is often tried to be explained with the help of words that we do not understand.

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The subject is not chosen. This is the secret of the masterpiece, that the subject is a reflection of the writer's temperament.

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To repent is good, but not to do evil is even better.

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Poetry is a special way of perceiving the outside world, a special organ that sifts the material and transfigures it without changing it.

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Loneliness cannot be filled with memories, they only make it worse.

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We cannot live by inspiration. Pegasus often walks at a walk, not a gallop. The trick is to get him to match his gait with yours.

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His first feeling was one of infinite wonder. This dashing of his hope really crushed him. He felt lost, like a man who has fallen into the depths of a vortex, who knows that there is no one to help him and that he must die.

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Success is just a side effect. You should never become a target.

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Our passions are like volcanoes: they rumble constantly, but erupt only at intervals.

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There is nothing more humiliating than seeing fools succeed where we fail.

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Beware of sadness. Sadness is a sin. A man finds joy in his sorrow, and then when the sorrow is over, he stands there dumbfounded because he has wasted all his precious strength on his sorrow. Then he regrets it, but it's too late.

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Throwing as little of the cargo into the sea as possible so that the ship can move easily: this is wisdom.

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Everything passes, as water flows, as the heart forgets.

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We love only those for whom we suffer.

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Love must come suddenly, between lightning and thunder - like a war in the sky that breaks into life, turns it upside down, grabs a person's will like a leaf, and throws it into a whirlwind everywhere.

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Excessive speech hides mediocre emotions, as if the fullness of the soul does not sometimes overflow in the most empty metaphors, because no one can ever give an exact measure to his desires, just as he cannot to his ideas or to his pains, since human speech is only a kind of cracked cauldron from which good , if we can conjure up bear-dancing melodies when we want to scream at the stars with them.

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Oh happiness! Happiness! I saw the birth of life, I saw the beginning of movement! My blood beats so hard that my veins pop. I want to fly, swim, bark, hum, pull. I would like to have wings, armor, bark, I would like to smoke, to wear a snout, to twist my body, to spread everywhere, to exist in everyone, to flow with scents, to unfold with plants, to flow like water, to vibrate like sound, to flash like the light, smoothing into every form, pushing into every atom, penetrating the depths of matter - I wish I were the matter itself!

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The woman is an ordinary creature whom you have exalted in your imagination.

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He who is not a good artist becomes a critic, just as he who is not a good soldier becomes a critic.

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Sometimes he even smiled, hanging his eyes on her for a minute. (...) He felt that his gaze penetrated his soul, like the rays of the sun that fall into the depths of the water. He loved without any calculation, without even hoping for anything, without limit; and in this silent rapture, which was like a gratitude, he wanted to shower his forehead with a shower of kisses.

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He got used to the countryside, sank into it - and even in love he found some mournful sweetness, some hypnotic charm.

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- So happiness is impossible? - It is not, but we will never find it in lies, beatings and remorse! - And then! If the reward for all this is divine joy! - But the experience is bitter!

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There is some secret power that can connect two souls, let them know what they feel for each other, and bring them together, despite all the distance.

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People-loving, great soul, he understands the sublimity of art.

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She never did anything to inflame the young man's passion, she just enjoyed it carelessly, with the calmness of great carelessness... in any case, she was already close to the end of the woman's summer, to that peculiar age of tenderness and reflection, when the beginning of maturity catches a deeper flame in the eye, when the strength of the heart is mixed with the knowledge of life, the perfect harmony of her beauty is revealed in the final opening of the complete woman. There was never so much kindness, so much indulgent love. He knew he couldn't fail, and he surrendered to the emotion to which he believed his previous sorrows gave him full right. And then it was so good and so unknown.

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If we see that beautiful dreams are deceptions, we have to settle for mediocrity.

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The entire past guarantees the safety of the future.

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He thought only of himself, as if buried in his dreams and crumbled to dust, discouraged, sick and full of bottomless sorrow; and suddenly hating this artificial atmosphere in which he had suffered so much, he longed for fresh meadows, blessed village tranquility, a peaceful life in the shadow of his native house with simple, good hearts.

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He had a few new loves. But his first memory had spoiled him somewhat; and where was the heat of desire, the fresh flavor of the experience? His intellectual ambition also diminished. Years passed in the same way; and he lived on with a weak heart and an idle mind.

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I felt everything, his whole being, a word, a movement significant, important, superhuman. My heart, like the dust of the road, swayed behind every step. I saw it like the moon on a summer evening, when everything is full of good smells, gentle shadows, white infinity; and all my physical and mental salvation lived in his name, I repeated that over and over, kissed that on my lips. Beyond that, I saw nothing, no one.

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A modest household gave birth to luxurious dreams, conjugal love to adulterous desires. (...) Sometimes even he was surprised by what wild ideas came to his mind; and you just had to keep smiling, listen to your own voice saying that you are happy, and behave in such a way that they would believe you. And meanwhile he was disgusted by this hypocrisy.

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There is no need to touch the idols: the gold paint remains on our hands.

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We all have a royal suite in our hearts, I walled it up, but I didn't destroy it.

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FACE: "The mirror of the soul" - according to them, there are those whose souls are very ugly.

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Just examine yourself: have you ever felt an emotion that disappeared? No, everything remains... Everything.

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No, I don't think happiness is possible, but peace is. That's why I stay away from anything that makes me nervous.

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In the end, every dream finds its form: for every thirst there is a wave, for every heart there is love.

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The future worries us, the past holds us captive, so we neglect the present.

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Writing is a sublime thing, a person is no longer himself, yet he moves in a universe of his own making. Today, for example, on an autumn afternoon I rode through a forest under yellow leaves as man and woman, lover and beloved; and I was in the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words of my characters, even the red sun that forced their love-drunk eyes to close.

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Poems are not written by passion. The more personal they are, the weaker they are. The less we feel something, the stronger our ability to express it as it really is, but we must have the gift of perception.

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Let's simply call any lofty idea that we don't understand a fantasy.

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It's better to be a cheater than a cheater.

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Deep feeling is like the decent woman, afraid to be seen, walking down the road of life.

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Among the disappointments of life, it is so nice to enjoy, if only in thought, a noble character, a pure emotion and images of happiness.

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The future happiness, like the tropical coastline, projects its intimate softness, its most fragrant breath into infinity, and we are already swaying forward in this intoxication, without caring about the horizon that is not yet visible anyway.

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How much do they recite against the passions? Is there anything more beautiful than them in this whole world? Everything comes from them, heroism, enthusiasm, poetry, music, the arts, in a word, everything!

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Every smile hides a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, every pleasure a curse, and even the most delicious kisses leave nothing on the lips but an unrealizable dream of a higher beauty.

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If I have to choose between betraying my friend or my country, I prefer my country.

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He who has a good heart is made happy by the sight of joy.

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No one can be made a horse twice and for nothing.