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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
Come
Basis
Bases
Conviction
Finally
Inner
Conscience
Calls
Literature
Vanity
Everything
Firm

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Only three things are infinite. The sky in its stars, the sea in its drops of water, and the heart in its tears.
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Women want you to deceive them: they force you to, and if you resist, they blame you.
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Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century.
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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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To see one's name in print! Some people commit a crime for no other reason.
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To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
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A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.
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A superhuman will is needed in order to write, and I am only a man.
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The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family.
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The future is the worst thing about the present.
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She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all the poetry books.
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Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.
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Iced champagne was served, and the feel of the cold wine in her mouth gave Emma a shiver that ran over her from head to toe.
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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!
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Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.
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Everything which one invents is true, be sure of it.
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The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close yourself up in Art and to count for nothing all the rest.
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Thought is the greatest of pleasures —pleasure itself is only imagination—have you ever enjoyed anything more than your dreams?
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For some men, the stronger their desire, the more difficult it is for them to act.
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Sick, irritated, and the prey to a thousand discomforts, I go on with my labor like a true workingman, who, with sleeves rolled up, in the sweat of his brow, beats away at his anvil, not caring whether it rains or blows, hails or thunders.
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