Gustave Flaubert

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

There is no truth. There is only perception.

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.

All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a monstrosity, something outside of nature.

Stupidity is something unshakable nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it it is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant.

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

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.

One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes.

Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.

Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.

One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

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

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.

The future is the worst thing about the present.