Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry. Gustave Flaubert More Quotes by Gustave Flaubert More Quotes From Gustave Flaubert All you have to do to make something interesting is to look at it long enough. Gustave Flaubert longlooksinteresting Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying. Gustave Flaubert constantdyingtalking Exuberance is better than taste. Gustave Flaubert exuberancetasteenthusiasm After a person dies, there is always something like a feeling of stupefaction, so difficult is it to comprehend this unexpected advent of nothingness and to resign oneself to believing it. Gustave Flaubert feelingsbelievedeath God is only a word dreamed up to explain the world Gustave Flaubert world The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy. Gustave Flaubert literaturebookway How you measure the performance of your managers directly affects the way they act. Gustave Flaubert appraisalperformancesway The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded. Gustave Flaubert aggravationliteraturehumanity I invite all brats to throw their cookies at the baker's head if they're not sweet, winos to chuck their wine if it's bad, the dying to shuck their souls when they croak, and men to throw their existence in God's face when it's bitter Gustave Flaubert winesweetmen What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures. Gustave Flaubert serious-persongesturessticks You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem seem to see before you, your thoughts are caught up in the story, dallying with the details or following the course of the plot, you enter into characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes. Gustave Flaubert forget-everythingheartcharacter What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind beating on the windows and the lamp burning bright...Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure idea that returns from afar and that seems to express completely your most subtle feelings? Gustave Flaubert windbookideas A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss. Gustave Flaubert missing-youbeautifulmemories A man, at least, is free; he can explore every passion, every land, overcome obstacles, taste the most distant pleasures. But a woman is continually thwarted. Inert and pliant at the same time, she must struggle against both the softness of her flesh and subjection to the law. Her will, like the veil tied to her hat by a string, flutters with every breeze; there is always some desire luring her on, some convention holding her back. Gustave Flaubert womenpassionstruggle But an infinity of passions can be contained in a minute, like a crowd in a tiny space. Gustave Flaubert crowdspassionspace I sometimes feel a great ennui, profound emptiness, doubts which sneer in my face in the midst of the most spontaneous satisfactions. Well, I would not exchange all that for anything, because it seems to me, in my conscience, that I am doing my duty, that I am obeying a superior fatality, that I am following the Good and that I am in the Right. Gustave Flaubert doubtworkprofound She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris. Gustave Flaubert wanted-to-diepariswanted Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level Gustave Flaubert levelssoulidentity Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory. Gustave Flaubert anticipationmemoriesfirsts It is necessary to sleep upon the pillow of doubt. Gustave Flaubert pillowdoubtsleep
