Gustave Flaubert

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

— Gustave Flaubert

#good health #happiness #health #lacking #lost

An infinity of passion can be contained in one minute, like a crowd in a small space. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#passion #time #space

Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers." (Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.) ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#disillusionment #gilding #idols #touch #disappointment

The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#books #literature #reading #literature

You don’t make art out of good intentions. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#artists #creativity #writers #writing #art

Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#life

He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#vanity #men

Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#anything #artists #attain #cannot #everything

We must laugh and cry, enjoy and suffer, in a word, vibrate to our full capacity … I think that’s what being really human means. ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#life #life

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

— Gustave Flaubert

#authority