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Quote by Gustave Flaubert

“And so I will take back up my poor life, so plain and so tranquil, where phrases are adventures and the only flowers I gather aremetaphors.”

Quote by Gustave Flaubert

Author

Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert, born on December 12, 1821 and died on May 8, 1880, was a prominent French writer of the 19th century. Known for his exquisite literary skills and profound psychological portrayals, Flaubert is best remembered for his masterpiece 'Madame Bovary'. more

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“The style, which is something I take to heart, is getting on my nerves horribly. It frustrates and torments me. I have days when Iam sick about it and nights when it gives me a fever. The more I go at it the more I find myself incapable of conveying the Idea.”

Giving Heart Ideas Night Suffering Literature Work Style Sick Give Me Nerves Incapable Torment Fever Conveying

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“Criticism occupies the lowest place in the literary hierarchy: as regards form, almost always; and as regards moral value, incontestably. It comes after rhyming games and acrostics, which at least require a certain inventiveness.”

Form Certain Values Games Moral Criticism Regard Lowest Hierarchy Moral Values Rhyming Inventiveness

Book:The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857

Source: The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857

“Once one has kissed a cadaver's forehead, there always remains something of it on the lips, an infinite bitterness, an aftertasteof nothingness that nothing can erase.”

Death Infinite Remains Lips Bitterness Infinity Nothingness Erase Foreheads Cadavers

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“I sometimes feel a great ennui, profound emptiness, doubts which sneer in my face in the midst of the most spontaneous satisfactions. Well, I would not exchange all that for anything, because it seems to me, in my conscience, that I am doing my duty, that I am obeying a superior fatality, that I am following the Good and that I am in the Right.”

Feels Wells Sometimes Seems Faces Work Doubt Duty Conscience Profound Satisfaction Following Superiors Emptiness Midst Spontaneous Obeying Ennui Sneer Fatality

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“I do not like to "interest" the public with myself.”

Self Interest Fame

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“Mediocrity cherishes rules; as for me, I hate them; I feel for them and for every restriction, corporation, caste, hierarchy, level, herd, a loathing which fills my soul, and it is in this respect perhaps that I understand martyrdom.”

Feels Soul Hate Levels Respect I Hate My Soul Corporations Cherish Conformity Mediocrity Hierarchy Restriction Herds Loathing Martyrdom Castes

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead, The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust?”

Men Praise Dust Great Men Modesty Magnificence Haughty

Book:Selected poems

Source: Selected poems

“Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust, The horns of glory blowing above my burial?”

Should Death Lying Glory Dust Should I Horns Burial

Book:Selected poems

Source: Selected poems

“Time in the heart and sequence in the brain-- Such as destroyed Rimbaud and fooled Verlaine. And let us then take godhead by the neck-- And strangle it, and with it, rhetoric.”

Heart Time Brain Destroyed Necks Rhetoric Sequence Fooled

Book:Collected Poems

Source: Collected Poems

“I ascend from darkness And depart on the winds of space for I know not where; My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.”

Knows Space Watches Morning Darkness Sky Wind Keys Wounds Pockets Stairs

Book:Selected poems

Source: Selected poems