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I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

Gustave Flaubert

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Gustave Flaubert
Age: 58 †
Born: 1821
Born: December 12
Died: 1880
Died: May 8
Novelist
Writer
Flaubert
Literature
Vanity
Everything
Firm
Come
Basis
Bases
Conviction
Finally
Inner
Conscience
Calls

More quotes by Gustave Flaubert

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It seems to me that I have always existed and that I possess memories that date back to the Pharaohs.
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My foregrounds are imaginary, my backgrounds real.
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Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of genius, is, above all, force.
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I detest my fellow-beings and do not feel that I am their fellow at all
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When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women
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I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is.
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Doesn't it seem to you, asked Madame Bovary, that the mind moves more freely in the presence of that boundless expanse, that the sight of it elevates the soul and gives rise to thoughts of the infinite and the ideal?
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A good sentence in prose should be like a good line in poetry, unchangeable, as rhythmic, as sonorous.
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Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a monstrosity, something outside of nature.
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My life which I dream will be so beautiful, so poetic, so vast, so filled with love will turn out to be like everybody else's - monotonous, sensible, stupid.
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You don't know what it is to stay a whole day with your head in your hands trying to squeeze your unfortunate brain so as to find a word.
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It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find.
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The morality of art is in its very beauty.
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I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.
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Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.
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Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.
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DOCTOR. Always preceded by 'The good'. Among men, in familiar conversation, 'Oh! balls, doctor!' Is a wizard when he enjoys your confidence, a jack-ass when you're no longer on terms. All are materialists: 'you can't probe for faith with a scalpel.'
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Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. The ordinary person today lives better than a king did a century ago but is ungrateful!
Gustave Flaubert
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Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.
Gustave Flaubert
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Talent is a long patience.
Gustave Flaubert