Gustave Flaubert

"There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it"

"I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within."

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

"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."

"God is only a word dreamed up to explain the world"

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

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

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

"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."

"When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women"

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

"There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it"

"Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live."

"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."

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

"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."

"One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels."

"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."

"There are two infinities that confuse me: the one in my soul devours me; the one around me will crush me"