“Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.”
Success
“The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.”
DietAll Quotes by Gustave Flaubert
“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.”
Art“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
Work“Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.”
Happiness“The future is the worst thing about the present.”
Future“A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.”
Death“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”
Art“Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution.”
Age“Life must be a constant education one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.”
Education“Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
Music“Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.”
Poetry“There is no truth. There is only perception.”
Truth“There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things.”
Art“You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.”
Art“The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.”
Art“The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.”
Work“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”
Happiness“One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.”
Hope“One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.”
Happiness“Stupidity is something unshakable nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.”
Nature