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.

Quote by Gustave Flaubert

Topics: Gustave Flaubert Quotes

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the...

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the...

The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and...

The author, in his work, must be like God in the Universe, present everywhere and...

What is the beautiful, if not the impossible.

What is the beautiful, if not the impossible.

Of all lies, art is the least untrue.

Of all lies, art is the least untrue.

Books are made not like children but like pyramids and they're just as useless! And...

Books are made not like children but like pyramids and they're just as useless! And...

Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance...

Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance...

I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.

I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything,...

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything,...

The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts.

The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts.

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and...

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and...

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to...

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to...

One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm...

One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm...

Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance...

Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance...

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity...

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity...

The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.

The faster the word sticks to the thought, the more beautiful is the effect.

Of all possible debauches, traveling is the greatest that I know; that's the one they...

Of all possible debauches, traveling is the greatest that I know; that's the one they...

Doubtis an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.

Doubtis an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.

There is no doubt that someone who tries to throw a curve or pitch at...

There is no doubt that someone who tries to throw a curve or pitch at...

Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: --in the force of imagination that pierces or...

Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy: --in the force of imagination that pierces or...

We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we...

We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we...

If hooking a car battery up to a monkey's brain will help find the cure...

If hooking a car battery up to a monkey's brain will help find the cure...

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one...

Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one...