Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubertwas an influential French novelist who was perhaps the leading exponent of literary realism in his country. 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 Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth12 December 1821
CityRouen, France
CountryFrance
Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.
Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.
Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.
Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
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.
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.
Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.
Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.
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.
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.
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.
One mustn't always believe that feeling is everything. In the arts, it is nothing without form.