Gustave Flaubert

“The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.”

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

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

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

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

“A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies.”

“Of all lies, art is the least untrue.”

“Read in order to live.”

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

“Life must be a constant education; one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“The future is the worst thing about the present.”

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.”

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

“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.”