Gustave Flaubert - Sentimental Education (1869)

8 Sourced Quotes

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Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

Gustave Flaubert
For some men, the stronger their desire, the more difficult it is for them to act. They are hampered by mistrust of themselves, daunted by the fear of giving offence; besides, deep feelings of affection are like respectable women; they are afraid of being found out and they go through life with downcast eyes.

Gustave Flaubert
Don't talk to me about your hideous reality! What does it mean — reality? Some see things black, others blue — the multitude sees them brute-fashion. There is nothing less natural than Michael Angelo; there is nothing more powerful! The anxiety about eternal truth is a mark of contemporary baseness; and art will become, if things go on in that way, a sort of poor joke as much below religion as it is below poetry, and as much below politics as it is below business. You will never reach its end — yes, its end! — which is to cause within us an impersonal exaltation, with petty works, in spite of all your finished execution.

Gustave Flaubert
Naturalness and ease of manner—a product of sophistication which the gullible interpret as a sign of instant affinity.

Gustave Flaubert
To please women you either have to be carefree and play the fool or else be tragic and passionate. When you say to them quite simply that you love them, women laugh at you.

Gustave Flaubert
Neither could find anything to say. There comes a moment during leave-taking when the loved one is no longer with us.

Gustave Flaubert
He is so corrupt that he would willingly pay for the pleasure of selling himself.

Gustave Flaubert
Without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most effective monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a streetpavement, and a savage is surely better than a hairdresser!

Gustave Flaubert