The more you approach infinity, the deeper you penetrate terror Gustave Flaubert More Quotes by Gustave Flaubert More Quotes From Gustave Flaubert Only three things are infinite. The sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears. Gustave Flaubert stars memorable heart The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence. Gustave Flaubert aggravation father son Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry. Gustave Flaubert poetry literature may How we keep these dead souls in our hearts. Each one of us carries within himself his necropolis. Gustave Flaubert carrie soul heart Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings. Gustave Flaubert ruins literature love Prose is like hair; it shines with combing. Gustave Flaubert shining hair writing One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels. Gustave Flaubert i-hate-you masters doe The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity. Each religion and each philosophy has pretended to have God to itself, to measure the infinite, and to know the recipe for happiness. What arrogance and what nonsense! I see, to the contrary, that the greatest geniuses and the greatest works have never concluded. Gustave Flaubert design humanity philosophy By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming an idiot oneself. Gustave Flaubert becoming risk running I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is. Gustave Flaubert tranquility believe thinking What I would like to write is a book about nothing, a book without exterior attachments, which would be held together by the innerforce of its style, as the earth without support is held in the air--a book that would have almost no subject or at least in which the subject would be almost invisible. Gustave Flaubert writing book art A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies. Gustave Flaubert friend-died loss death Through small apertures we glimpse abysses whose sombre depths turn us faint. And yet over the whole there hovers an extraordinary tenderness. Gustave Flaubert aperture glimpse life One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes. Gustave Flaubert desperate doubt To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. Gustave Flaubert selfish stupid happiness There are three thing in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet, and Don Giovanni. Gustave Flaubert three sea world Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal. Gustave Flaubert animal beautiful men He loved a book because it was a book; he loved its odor, its form, its title. What he loved in a manuscript was its old illegible date, the bizarre and strange Gothic characters, the heavy gilding which loaded its drawings. It was its pages covered with dust — dust of which he breathed the sweet and tender perfume with delight. Gustave Flaubert sweet character book It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling. Gustave Flaubert voyages return travel I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something – the eternal ‘what’s the use?’ – sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis. Gustave Flaubert ambition dream depression
