All ones inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry. – Gustave Flaubert
One mustnt ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness. – Gustave Flaubert
A friend who dies, its something of you who dies. – Gustave Flaubert
I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly. – Gustave Flaubert
The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens. – Gustave Flaubert
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. – Gustave Flaubert
Success is a consequence and must not be a goal. – Gustave Flaubert
Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry. – Gustave Flaubert
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. – Gustave Flaubert
Stupidity is something unshakable nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant. – Gustave Flaubert
I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings. – Gustave Flaubert
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. – Gustave Flaubert
One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes. – Gustave Flaubert
Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. – Gustave Flaubert
Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it. – Gustave Flaubert
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. – Gustave Flaubert
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. – Gustave Flaubert
The future is the worst thing about the present. – Gustave Flaubert
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. – Gustave Flaubert
The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family. – Gustave Flaubert
