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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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Gustave Flaubert
Age: 58 †
Born: 1821
Born: December 12
Died: 1880
Died: May 8
Novelist
Writer
Flaubert
Ears
Whose
Violinist
Within
Reproduce
Sound
Irritated
True
Hears
Writing
Precisely
Like
Refuse
Fingers

More quotes by 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?
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One day, I shall explode like an artillery shell and all my bits will be found on the writing table.
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You can't find the soul with a scalpel.
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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.
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What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.
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Always 'duty.' I am sick of the word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone into our ears 'Duty, duty!' Ah! by Jove! one's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.
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Reality does not conform to the ideal, but confirms it.
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And so I will take back up my poor life, so plain and so tranquil, where phrases are adventures and the only flowers I gather aremetaphors.
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As words have an effective power of their own, curses reported against someone might turn against the speaker.
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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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May I die like a dog rather than hasten the ripening of a sentence by a single second!
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There is no truth. There is only perception.
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Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
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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.
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We swung between madness and suicide ... it was beautiful!
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One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.
Gustave Flaubert
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The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet.
Gustave Flaubert
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How we keep these dead souls in our hearts. Each one of us carries within himself his necropolis.
Gustave Flaubert
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Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.
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The principal thing in the world is to keep the soul aloft.
Gustave Flaubert