694 Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

For a long time now my heart has had its shutters closed, its steps deserted, formerly a tumultuous hotel, but now empty and echoing like a great empty tomb.

Cosa c’è di meglio, in realtà, che starsene la sera accanto al fuoco con un bel libro in mano, mentre il vento sbatte contro le persiane e arde il lume della lampada?

Without moving, you walk through lands you imagine you can see, and your thoughts, weaving in and out of the story, delight in the details or follow the outlines of the adventures. You merge with the character; you think you're the one whose heart is beating so hard within the clothes he's wearing.

One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.

She remembered the summer evenings all full of sunshine. The colts neighed when any one passed by, and galloped, galloped. Under her window there was a beehive, and sometimes the bees wheeling round in the light struck against her window like rebounding balls of gold.

...and the country is like a great unfolded mantle with a green velvet cape bordered with a fringe of silver.

This haze of blood must subside, the palace must collapse under the weight of the riches it conceals, the orgy must finish and the time come to awaken.

It is true that I am endowed with an absurd sensitiveness, what scratches others tears me to pieces.

I love the autumn—that melancholy season that suits memories so well. When the trees have lost their leaves, when the sky at sunset still preserves the russet hue that fills with gold the withered grass, it is sweet to watch the final fading of the fires that until recently burnt within you.