Quote

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.

Gustave Flaubert

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Gustave Flaubert
Age: 58 †
Born: 1821
Born: December 12
Died: 1880
Died: May 8
Novelist
Writer
Flaubert
Worth
Numbers
Enemy
Calculate
Art
Spoken
Work
Enemies
Men
Harm
Importance
Number

More quotes by Gustave Flaubert

Image
How we keep these dead souls in our hearts. Each one of us carries within himself his necropolis.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Doubt … is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
After a person dies, there is always something like a feeling of stupefaction, so difficult is it to comprehend this unexpected advent of nothingness and to resign oneself to believing it.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
I go from exasperation to a state of collapse, then I recover and go from prostration to Fury, so that my average state is one of being annoyed.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Better to work for yourself alone. You do as you like and follow your own ideas, you admire yourself and please yourself: isn’t that the main thing? And then the public is so stupid. Besides, who reads? And what do they read? And what do they admire?
Gustave Flaubert
Image
But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Do not imagine you can exorcise what oppresses you in life by giving vent to it in art.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
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.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
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.'
Gustave Flaubert
Image
The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
DAGUERREOTYPE Will take the place of painting. (See PHOTOGRAPHY.) (From The Dictionary of Received Ideas, assembled from notes Flaubert made in the 1870s.)
Gustave Flaubert
Image
As words have an effective power of their own, curses reported against someone might turn against the speaker.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
Reveal art conceal the artist.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
My foregrounds are imaginary, my backgrounds real.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return.
Gustave Flaubert
Image
But an infinity of passions can be contained in a minute, like a crowd in a tiny space.
Gustave Flaubert