I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly. — Gustave Flaubert
It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the pharaohs. — Gustave Flaubert
Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying. — Gustave Flaubert
Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings. — Gustave Flaubert
Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in. — Gustave Flaubert
One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness. — Gustave Flaubert
One mustn’t always believe that feeling is everything. In the arts, it is nothing without form. — Gustave Flaubert
Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; — Gustave Flaubert
Style is as much under the words as in the words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh of a work. — 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 author, in his work, must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. — 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
The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts. — Gustave Flaubert
The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in art and to count for nothing all the rest. — Gustave Flaubert
The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family. — Gustave Flaubert
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois. — 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
Woman is a vulgar animal from whom man has created an excessively beautiful ideal. — Gustave Flaubert