Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Gustave Flaubert Novelist

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: France
  • Born: Dec 12, 1821
  • Died: May 8, 1880

Gustave Flaubert was an influential French writer. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary, for his Correspondence, and for his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated short story writer Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert.

The cult of art gives pride one never has too much of it.

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

Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.

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

Of all lies, art is the least untrue.

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.

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

There is no truth. There is only perception.

The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.

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

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

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

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

Stupidity is something unshakable nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.

I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.

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

Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

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

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.

Life must be a constant education one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.

The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.

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.

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

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

The future is the worst thing about the present.