694 Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

But the most wretched thing, is it not-is to drag out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice.

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.

Madame Bovary is myself.

Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.

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.

I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.

She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.

The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.

May I die like a dog rather than hasten the ripening of a sentence by a single second!