Quote

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal. I've never sought it (though I desire it) and seek it less and less.

Gustave Flaubert

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Gustave Flaubert
Age: 58 †
Born: 1821
Born: December 12
Died: 1880
Died: May 8
Novelist
Writer
Flaubert
Though
Goal
Less
Success
Desire
Must
Sought
Never
Consequence
Seek

More quotes by Gustave Flaubert

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What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.
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Life must be a constant education one must learn everything, from speaking to dying.
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[The artist] is like a pump he has inside him a great pipe that reaches down into the entrails of things, the deepest layers. He sucks up what was lying there below, dim and unnoticed, and brings it in great jets to the sunlight.
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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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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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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.
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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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A thing derided is a thing dead a laughing man is stronger than a suffering man.
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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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Everything is there: the love of Art.
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COLD. Healthier than heat.
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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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The future is the worst thing about the present.
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When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women
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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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What a heavy oar the pen is, and what a strong current ideas are to row in!
Gustave Flaubert
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For him the universe did not extend beyond the circumference of her petticoat.
Gustave Flaubert
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… Her heart remained empty once more, and the procession of days all alike began again. So they were going to follow one another, like this, in line, always identical, innumerable, bringing nothing!
Gustave Flaubert
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A memory is a beautiful thing, it's almost a desire that you miss.
Gustave Flaubert