Top 71 Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

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

Read in order to live.

The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.

One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness.

I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.

I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen.

Here is true immorality: ignorance and stupidity; the devil is nothing but this. His name is Legion.

Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force.

I hate that which we have decided to call realism, even though I have been made one of its high priests.

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.