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Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert Quotes

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Famous Gustave Flaubert Quotes

“Adieu, mon cher vieux. Relis et rebûche ton conte. Laisse-le reposer et reprends-le, les livres ne se font pas comme les enfants, mais comme les pyramides, avec un dessin prémédité, et en apportant des grands blocs l´un par-dessus l´autre, à force de reins, de temps et de sueur, et ça ne sert à rien! et ça reste dans le désert! mais en le dominant prodigieusement. Les chacals pissent au bas et les bourgeois montent dessus, etc.; continue la comparaison.”

HumorBooksFrench
Author:Gustave Flaubert
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“Everyone rushes wherever his instincts impel him, the populace swarms like insects over a corpse, poets pass by without having the time to sculpt their thoughts, hardly have they scribbled their ideas down on sheets of paper than the sheets are blown away; everything glitters and everything resounds in this masquerade, beneath its ephemeral royalties and its cardboard scepters, gold flows, wine cascades, cold debauchery lifts her skirts and jigs around…horror! horror! and then there hangs over it all a veil that each one grabs part of to hide himself the best he can. Derision! Horror – horror!”

SocietyMankind
Book:Memoirs of a Madman
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“La signora Dambreuse stava vicino al fuoco, in mezzo a un semicerchio di una dozzina di persone. Con una parola cortese, gli fece cenno di sedere, ma senza parere meravigliata di non averlo veduto da un pezzo. Quand'egli entrò, stavano elogiando l'eloquenza dell'abate Coeur. Poi fu deplorata l'immoralità dei domestici, a proposito di un furto commesso da un cameriere; e i pettegolezzi si sgomitolarono. La vecchia signora di Sommer aveva un raffreddore, la signorina di Turvisot si maritava, i Montcharron non sarebbero tornati prima della fine di gennaio, e nemmeno i Bretancourt; era di moda trattenersi a lungo in campagna: e la miseria di quegli argomenti era come rinforzata dal lusso delle cose circostanti, ma ciò che si diceva era meno stupido del modo in cui si diceva, senza scopo, senza nesso, senza slancio. Eppure, c'erano uomini pratici della vita, un ex ministro, il curato di una grande parrocchia, due o tre alti funzionari del governo: ma si tenevano ai più triti luoghi comuni. Alcuni somigliavano a ricche vedove stanche, altri avevano modi da sensali, alcuni vegliardi accompagnavano mogli, delle quali avrebbero potuto farsi passare per nonni. La signora Dambreuse intratteneva tutti con grazia. Quando si parlava di un malato, aggrottava dolorosamente le sopracciglia; prendeva un'aria gioconda se si trattava di balli e di serate. Ella avrebbe dovuto presto privarsene, perché stava per far uscire di collegio una nipote di suo marito, un'orfana. Esaltarono il suo sacrificio: quello sì che era un condursi da madre di famiglia.”

LiteratureSociety
Book:L'Éducation sentimentale
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“Quanto a Emma, non si chiedeva se lo amasse. Ella credeva che l'amore dovesse arrivare all'improvviso, con fragori e folgori; uragano dei cieli che cade sulla vita, la sconvolge, strappa via le volontà come foglie, e trascina all'abisso il cuore intero. Ella non sapeva che sulle terrazze delle case la pioggia forma laghetti quando le grondaie sono ingorgate, e avrebbe continuato a credersi al sicuro, quando a un tratto scoprì una crepa nel muro.”

LoveBetrayalItaliano
Book:madame bovary
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“At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow.”

HopeDreams
Book:madame bovary
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“Another thirst had come to him—the thirst for women, for licentious pleasure, and all that Parisian life permitted him to enjoy. He felt somewhat stunned, like a man coming out of a ship, and in the visions that haunted his first sleep, he saw the shoulders of the fishwife, the loins of the 'longshorewoman, the calves of the Polish lady, and the head-dress of the female savage flying past him and coming back again continually. Then, two large black eyes, which had not been at the ball, appeared before him; and, light as butterflies, burning as torches, they came and went, ascended to the cornice and descended to his very mouth. Frederick made desperate efforts to recognise those eyes, without succeeding in doing so. But already the dream had taken hold of him. It seemed to him that he was yoked beside Arnoux to the pole of a hackney-coach, and that the Maréchale, astride of him, was disembowelling him with her gold spurs.(©Project Gutenberg)”

Hallucination
Book:Sentimental Education
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“Every time Leon had to tell her everything that he had done since their last meeting. She asked him for some verses - some verses for herself, a "love poem" in honour of her. But he never succeeded in getting a rhyme for the second verse; and at last ended by copying for her a sonnet in a "Keepsake". This was less from vanity than from the one desire of pleasing her. He did not question her ideas; he accepted all her tastes; he was rather becoming her mistress than she his. She had tender words and kisses that thrilled his soul. Where could she have learned this corruption almost incorporeal in the strength of its profundity and dissimulation?”

LeonMadame BovaryGustave FlaubertEmma Bovary
Book:madame bovary
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“When we entered a classroom we always tossed our caps on the floor, to free our hands; as soon as we crossed the threshold we would throw them under the bench so hard that they struck the wall and raised a cloud of dust; this was "the way it should be done." But the new boy either failed to notice this maneuver or was too shy to perform it himself, for he was still holding his cap on his lap at the end of the prayer. It was a head-gear of composite nature, combining elements of the busby, the lancer cap, the round hat, the otter-skin cap and the cotton nightcap--one of those wretched things whose mute ugliness has great depths of expression, like an idiot's face. Egg-shaped and stiffened by whalebone, it began with three rounded bands, followed by alternating diamond-shaped patches of velvet and rabbit fur separated by a red stripe, and finally there was a kind of bag terminating in a cardboard-lined polygon covered with complicated braid. A network of gold wire was attached to the top of this polygon by a long, extremely thin cord, forming a kind of tassel. The cap was new; its visor was shiny. "Stand up," said the teacher. He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh. He bent down and picked it up. A boy beside him knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once again. "Will you please put your helmet away?" said the teacher, a witty man.”

HumorHatsCapsAwkwardnessNewnessMisfitHeadgear
Book:madame bovary
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“Ea își dorea un fiu;ar fi trebuit să fie voinic și brunet;îi va spune Georges;idea de a avea un baiat era ca o speranță a răzbunării împotriva tuturor neputințelor trecute.Cel puțin,un barbat e liber;el poate trăi pasiunile și străbate țările,poate trece peste obstacole,poate gusta cele mai îndepărtate bucurii.În schimb,unei femei i se impun tot felul de piedici.Inertă și flexibilă în același timp,are împotriva ei slăbiciunea trupului și obligațiile legii.Voința ei,la fel ca voalata pălăriei,prinsă cu o panglică,tremură la orice adiere;exista mereu o dorință care o atrage,mereu o regula care o împiedică.”

FemeieBarbatFiu
Book:Doamna Bovary
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“Não tinham mais nada para dizer? Seus olhos, no entanto, estavam repletos de uma conversa mais séria; e, enquanto esforçavam-se para encontrar frases banais, ambos sentiam um mesmo langor invadir-lhes; era como um murmúrio da alma, profundo, contínuo, que dominava o das vozes. Tomados de espanto por aquela nova suavidade, não pensavam em narrar ao outro aquela sensação ou em descobrir sua causa. As alegrias futuras, assim como as costas dos trópicos, projetam suas indolências natais sobre a imensidão que as precede, uma espécie de brisa perfumada, e adormece-se naquela embriaguez sem nem mesmo preocupar-se com o horizonte, o qual não se pode avistar.”

In Love But Not At Peace
Book:madame bovary
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“I believe in the Supreme Being, in a Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us here below to fulfil our duties as citizens and fathers of families; but I don't need to go to church to kiss silver plates, and fatten, out of my pocket, a lot of good-for-nothings who live better than we do. For one can know him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contemplating the eternal vault like the ancients. My God! mine is the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, and of Beranger! I am for the profession of faith of the 'Savoyard Vicar,' and the immortal principles of '89! And I can't admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks in his garden with a cane in his hand, who lodges his friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and rises again at the end of three days; things absurd in themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all physical laws, which proves to us, by the way, that priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in which they would fain engulf the people with them.”

Religion
Book:madame bovary
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“On the hill there was a poor old tramp wandering about with his stick, in among the carriages. A mass of rags covered his shoulders, and a squashed beaver-hat, bent down into the shape of a bowl, concealed his face; but, when he took it off, he exposed, instead of eyelids, two yawning bloodstained holes. The flesh was tattered into scarlet strips; and fluid was trickling out, congealing into green crusts that reached down to his nose, with black nostrils that kept sniffing convulsively.”

BeggarDisfigurementTramp
Book:madame bovary
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“Then he remembered his wedding, the old times, the first pregnancy of his wife; he, too, had been very happy the day when he had taken her from her father to his home, and had carried her off on a pillion, trotting through the snow, for it was near Christmas-time, and the country was all white. She held him by one arm, her basket hanging from the other; the wind blew the long lace of her Cauchois headdress so that it sometimes flapped across his mouth, and when he turned his head he saw near him, on his shoulder, her little rosy face, smiling silently under the gold bands of her cap. To warm her hands she put them from time to time in his breast. How long ago it all was! Their son would have been thirty by now. Then he looked back and saw nothing on the road.”

MemoryNostalgiaMelancholyLost Youth
Author:Gustave Flaubert
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“Sometimes they opened a book and closed it again; what was the point? On other days they had the idea of tidying up the garden, but after a quarter of an hour they felt tired; or of looking at their farm, but they came back sick at heart; or doing household jobs, but Germaine cried out in protest; they gave up.”

TiredBoredWhat S The PointLacklustre
Book:Bouvard and Pécuchet with The Dictionary of Received Ideas
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“– Assim, nós – dizia ele –, por que nós nos conhecemos? Que acaso o quis? É que através da distância, sem dúvida como dois rios que correm para se unirem, as nossas inclinações particulares nos tinam levado um para o outro E ele tomou sua mão; e ela não a retirou. "Conjunto de boas culturas" – gritou o presidente. – Assim, por exemplo, quando eu fui à sua casa... "Ao Sr. Bizet, de Quincampoix." – Eu sabia que a acompanharia? "Setenta francos!" – Até mesmo cem vezes eu quis partir, e eu a segui, e fiquei. "Estrumes!" – Como eu ficaria esta noite, amanhã, os outros dias, toda a minha vida! "Ao Sr. Caron, d'Argueil, uma medalha de ouro!" – Pois nunca encontrei na companhia de alguém um encantamento tão completo. "Ao Sr. Bain, de Givry-Saint-Martin!" – Assim, eu, vou levar a sua lembrança. "Por um carneiro merino..." – Mas você vai me esquecer, eu vou ter passado como uma sombra. "Ao Sr. Belot, de Notre-Dame..." – Oh! Não, não é, eu serei alguma coisa em seu pensamento, em sua vida?”

DamnAnyways
Book:madame bovary
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“It would have been better to do what everyone else does, neither taking life too seriously nor seeing it as merely grotesque, choosing a profession and practicing it, grabbing one's share of the common cake, eating it and saying, "It's delicious!" rather than following the gloomy path that I have trodden all alone; then I wouldn’t be here writing this, or at least it would have been a different story. The further I proceed with it, the more confused it seems even to me, like hazy prospects seen from too far away, since everything passes, even the memory of our most scalding tears and our heartiest laughter; our eyes soon dry, our mouths resume their habitual shape; the only memory that remains to me is that of a long tedious time that lasted for several winters, spent in yawning and wishing I were dead”

WritingWriters
Book:November
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“Books aren’t made in the way that babies are: they are made like pyramids, There’s some long-pondered plan, and then great blocks of stone are placed one on top of the other, and it’s back-breaking, sweaty, time consuming work. And all to no purpose! It just stands like that in the desert! But it towers over it prodigiously. Jackals piss at the base of it, and bourgeois clamber to the top of it, etc. Continue this comparison.”

WritingCreativityBooksWriters
Author:Gustave Flaubert
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“Un uomo, se non altro, è libero; può percorrere passioni e paesi, attraversare gli ostacoli, afferrare le gioie più remote. Ma per una donna ci sono ostacoli di ogni tipo. Inerte e flessibile insieme, ha contro di sé le debolezze della carne e le costrizioni della legge. La sua volontà, come il velo del suo cappello trattenuto da un cordoncino, palpita a tutti i venti; c’è sempre qualche desiderio che la trascina e qualche convenienza che tuttavia la trattiene.”

Man Vs Woman
Book:madame bovary
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