Gustave Flaubert

"An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere."

Gustave Flaubert

Art and Culture

God and Religion

Rating: 8.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it."

Gustave Flaubert "Pensées de Gustave Flaubert"

Reality and Imagination

Rating: 7.40 (Number of Voters: 5)

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

Gustave Flaubert "Pensées de Gustave Flaubert"

Health and Alcohol

Love

Rating: 8.00 (Number of Voters: 1)

"To be stupid and selfish and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."

Gustave Flaubert letter to Louise Colet; August 6, 1846

Happiness

Wisdom and Stupidity

Rating: 5.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution."

Gustave Flaubert letter to Louise Colet

Happiness

Rating: 4.80 (Number of Voters: 5)

"Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying."

Gustave Flaubert "Pensées de Gustave Flaubert"

Education

Life and Death

Rating: 4.75 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Success is a consequence and must not be a goal."

Gustave Flaubert "Pensées de Gustave Flaubert"

Success and Fame

Rating: 8.00 (Number of Voters: 1)

"Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in."

Gustave Flaubert

Defeates and Mistakes

Rating: 4.00 (Number of Voters: 5)

"The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments."

Gustave Flaubert

Life and Death

Rating: 4.00 (Number of Voters: 3)

"Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful."

Gustave Flaubert

History and Nations

Rating: 5.00 (Number of Voters: 2)

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."

Gustave Flaubert

Happiness

Wisdom and Stupidity

Rating: 5.40 (Number of Voters: 5)

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

Gustave Flaubert

Politics and Diplomacy

Rating: 4.25 (Number of Voters: 4)

"Of all lies, art is the least untrue."

Gustave Flaubert

Art and Culture

Rating: 5.33 (Number of Voters: 3)

"The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him."

Gustave Flaubert

Art and Culture

Rating: 4.00 (Number of Voters: 5)