Gustave Flaubert

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

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

"Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live."

"Of all lies, art is the least untrue."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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

"Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom."

"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."

"The public wants work which flatters its illusions."

"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."