694 Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.

Mediocrity cherishes rules; as for me, I hate them; I feel for them and for every restriction, corporation, caste, hierarchy, level, herd, a loathing which fills my soul, and it is in this respect perhaps that I understand martyrdom.

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

Earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is limitless.

Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.

But the disparaging of those we love always alienates us from them to some extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt comes off in our hands.

Prose is like hair; it shines with combing.

The citadel of Machaerus rose east of the Dead Sea on a basalt Peak shaped like a cone, girdled by four deep valleys; two about its sides, one in front, and the fourth behind.

It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.