Home / Quotes / Quote by Gustave Flaubert

Quote by Gustave Flaubert

“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!”

Book:Memoirs of a Madman

Work

Memoirs of a Madman

This novel delves into the psyche of a character who challenges conventional norms and perceptions of sanity, offering readers a unique perspective on mental illness and societal expectations. more

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

“For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live- for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live- for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know- fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.”

Mankind Purpose Of Life

Book:The Grapes of Wrath

Source: The Grapes of Wrath

“What man’s not guilty? It’s taken you a long time to learn That everybody loves himself more than his neighbour.”

Mankind Guilty Selfishness Egoism

Book:Medea and Other Plays

Source: Medea and Other Plays

“As he becomes self-conscious, he's no longer part of nature.”

Life Nature Mankind Man Self Consciousness

Author:John Shelby Spong

“Everything is boring, boredom is the other epidemic which is making Europe ripe for decline. Boredom is the end product of each and every civilization. It is the arteriosclerosis of the great thinking peoples. The moment always arrives where even God, whether he’s called Zeus, Zebaoth or Zoroaster, has finished creating the universe and asks: “What’s the point of it, actually?” He yawns and chucks it aside. Mankind does the same with civilization. Boredom is the condition of a people which no longer believes but all the same is doing just fine. Boredom is when every clock in the country is predestined to be correct. When the same naive flowers blossom again in the month of March. When every day the deaths of good family fathers are announced in the papers. When a war breaks out in the Balkans. When poems go on about the stars. Boredom is a symptom of aging. Boredom is the diagnosis that talent and virtue are slowly being spent. Boredom is the life-long determination to a form of being which has worn itself out.”