694 Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

He had heard these things said to him so often that for him there was nothing original about them. Emma was like any other of his mistresses, and the charm of novelty slipping off gradually like a peace of clothing revealed in his nakedness the eternal monotony of passion which always assumes the same form and uses the same languages. He could not perceive, this man of such broad experiences, the difference in feelings that might underlay similarities of expression.

In her desire, she confused the sensual pleasures of luxury with the joys of the heart, elegance of manner with delicacy of feeling.

You must write for yourself, above all.

Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.

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

Self-possession depends on its environment.

Of all possible debauches, traveling is the greatest that I know; that’s the one they invented when they got tired of all the others.

Tout ce qu’on invente est vrai, soi-en sure. La poesie est une chose aussi precise que la geometrie.

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.