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Writing history is like drinking an ocean and pissing a cupful.

Gustave Flaubert

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Gustave Flaubert
Age: 58 †
Born: 1821
Born: December 12
Died: 1880
Died: May 8
Novelist
Writer
Flaubert
Pissing
Drinking
Ocean
History
Writing
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More quotes by Gustave Flaubert

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He loved the extensive vaults where you could hear the night birds and the sea breeze he loved the craggy ruins bound together by ivy, those dark halls, and any appearance of death and destruction. Having fallen so far from so high a position, he loved anything that had also fallen from a great height
Gustave Flaubert
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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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Success as I see it is a result, not a goal.
Gustave Flaubert
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COLD. Healthier than heat.
Gustave Flaubert
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To see one's name in print! Some people commit a crime for no other reason.
Gustave Flaubert
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Speech is a rolling press that always amplifies one's emotions.
Gustave Flaubert
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Life is so horrible that one can only bear it by avoiding it. And that can be done by living in the world of art.
Gustave Flaubert
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Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.
Gustave Flaubert
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I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.
Gustave Flaubert
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It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return.
Gustave Flaubert
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Madame Aubain's servant Felicite was the envy of the ladies of Pont-l'Eveque for half a century.
Gustave Flaubert
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He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, became drowsy through indifference to the vibrations of a love whose subtleties he could no longer distinguish.
Gustave Flaubert
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Thought is the greatest of pleasures —pleasure itself is only imagination—have you ever enjoyed anything more than your dreams?
Gustave Flaubert
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But an infinity of passions can be contained in a minute, like a crowd in a tiny space.
Gustave Flaubert
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In my view, the novelist has no right to express his opinions on the things of this world. In creating, he must imitate God: do his job and then shut up.
Gustave Flaubert
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It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts.
Gustave Flaubert
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Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
Gustave Flaubert
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Stupidity is an immovable object: you can't try to attack it wiithout being broken by it.
Gustave Flaubert
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He dreamed of funeral love, but dreams crumble and the tomb abides
Gustave Flaubert
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But some day sooner or later our passion would have cooled - inevitably - it's the way with everything human.
Gustave Flaubert