Gustave Flaubert

• "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.“
• "I have the handicap of being born with a special language to which I alone have the key.“
• "Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.“
• "Of all lies, art is the least untrue.“
• "The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.“
• "Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness nothing but faith, faith and freedom.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.“
• "The cult of art gives pride one never has too much of it.“
• "The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.“
• "A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.“
• "The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.“
• "Life must be a constant education one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.“
• "Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness nothing but faith, faith and freedom.“
• "The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.“
• "Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness nothing but faith, faith and freedom.“
• "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.“
• "The future is the worst thing about the present.“
• "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.“
• "To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.“
• "One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.“
• "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.“
• "Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.“
• "To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.“
• "Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.“
• "Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.“
• "One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.“
• "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.“
• "Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.“
• "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.“
• "I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.“
• "Stupidity is something unshakable nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.“
• "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.“
• "Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.“
• "Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.“
• "All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.“
• "All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.“
• "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.“
• "Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.“
• "There is no truth. There is only perception.“
• "One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.“
• "Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.“
• "The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.“
• "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.“

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