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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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How We Keep These

Gustave Flaubert
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How We Keep These Dead Souls In Our Hearts. Each One Of Us Carries Within Himself His Necropolis.

Understanding the Quote: "how we keep these dead souls in our hearts. each one of..."

This quote by Gustave Flaubert reflects deeply on the theme of heart. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Heart, Soul, Carrie, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Gustave Flaubert interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert is celebrated for insightful thoughts on heart and soul. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Heart
Soul
Carrie
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What Is The Beautiful, If Not The Impossible.
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Oh, If I Had Been Loved At The Age Of Seventeen, What An Idiot I Would Be Today. Happiness Is Like Smallpox: If You Catch It Too Soon, It Can Completely Ruin Your Constitution.
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I Am An Obscure And Patient Pearl-fisherman Who Dives Into The Deepest Waters And Comes Up With Empty Hands And A Blue Face. Some Fatal Attraction Draws Me Down Into The Abysses Of Thought, Down Into Those Innermost Recesses Which Never Cease To Fascinate The Strong. I Shall Spend My Life Gazing At The Ocean Of Art, Where Others Voyage Or Fight; And From Time To Time I’ll Entertain Myself By Diving For Those Green And Yellow Shells That Nobody Will Want. So I Shall Keep Them For Myself And Cover The Walls Of My Hut With Them.
Art
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You Forget Everything. The Hours Slip By. You Travel In Your Chair Through Centuries You Seem Seem To See Before You, Your Thoughts Are Caught Up In The Story, Dallying With The Details Or Following The Course Of The Plot, You Enter Into Characters, So That It Seems As If It Were Your Own Heart Beating Beneath Their Costumes.
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There Is Not A Particle Of Life Which Does Not Bear Poetry Within It
Inspirational
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Everything One Invents Is True, You May Be Perfectly Sure Of That. Poetry Is As Precise As Geometry.
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The Great Natures Which Are Good, Are Above Everything Generous And Don't Begrudge The Giving Of Themselves.
Giving
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The Heart, Like The Stomach, Wants A Varied Diet.
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Happiness Is A Monstrosity! Punished Are Those Who Seek It.
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I Love My Work With A Frenetic And Perverse Love, As An Ascetic Loves The Hair Shirt Which Scratches His Belly.
Hair
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My Kingdom Is As Wide As The Universe And My Wants Have No Limits. I Go Forward Always, Freeing Spirits And Weighing Words, Without Fear, Without Compassion, Without Love, Without God. I Am Called Science.
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I Have Dreamed Much And Have Done Very Little.
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I Invite All Brats To Throw Their Cookies At The Baker's Head If They're Not Sweet, Winos To Chuck Their Wine If It's Bad, The Dying To Shuck Their Souls When They Croak, And Men To Throw Their Existence In God's Face When It's Bitter
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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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My Foregrounds Are Imaginary, My Backgrounds Real.
Real
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My Life Which I Dream Will Be So Beautiful, So Poetic, So Vast, So Filled With Love Will Turn Out To Be Like Everybody Else's - Monotonous, Sensible, Stupid.
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Our Ignorance Of History Causes Us To Slander Our Own Times.
Ignorance
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Daguerreotype Will Take The Place Of Painting. (see Photography.) (from The Dictionary Of Received Ideas, Assembled From Notes Flaubert Made In The 1870s.)
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Of All The Icy Blasts That Blow On Love, A Request For Money Is The Most Chilling.
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Talent Is A Long Patience.
Long
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As Words Have An Effective Power Of Their Own, Curses Reported Against Someone Might Turn Against The Speaker.
Might
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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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In Her Enthusiasms She Had Always Looked For Something Tangible: She Had Always Loved Church For Its Flowers, Music For Its Romantic Words, Literature For Its Power To Stir The Passions And She Rebelled Before The Mysteries Of Faith Just As She Grew Ever More Restive Under Discipline, Which Was Antipathetic To Her Nature.
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Passion
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What Wretched Poverty Of Language! To Compare Stars To Diamonds!
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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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Doubt … Is An Illness That Comes From Knowledge And Leads To Madness.
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Madness
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I Go Dreaming Into The Future, Where I See Nothing, Nothing. I Have No Plans, No Idea, No Project, And, What Is Worse, No Ambition. Something – The Eternal ‘what’s The Use?’ – Sets Its Bronze Barrier Across Every Avenue That I Open Up In The Realm Of Hypothesis.
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Concern For Morality Makes Every Work Of The Imagination False And Stupid.
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I Detest My Fellow-beings And Do Not Feel That I Am Their Fellow At All
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He Loved A Book Because It Was A Book; He Loved Its Odor, Its Form, Its Title. What He Loved In A Manuscript Was Its Old Illegible Date, The Bizarre And Strange Gothic Characters, The Heavy Gilding Which Loaded Its Drawings. It Was Its Pages Covered With Dust — Dust Of Which He Breathed The Sweet And Tender Perfume With Delight.
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There Are In Me, In Literary Terms, Two Distinct Characters: One Who Is Taken With Roaring, With Lyricism, With Soaring Aloft, With All The Sonorities Of Phrase And Summits Of Thought; And The Other Who Digs And Scratches For Truth All He Can, Who Is As Interested In The Little Facts As The Big Ones, Who Would Like To Make You Feel Materially The Things He Reproduces.
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It Is Always Sad To Leave A Place To Which One Knows One Will Never Return. Such Are The Melancolies Du Voyage: Perhaps They Are One Of The Most Rewarding Things About Traveling.
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I Took Eugene Sue's Arthur From The Reading-room. It's Indescribable, Enough To Make You Vomit. You Have To Read This To Realize The Pitifulness Of Money, Success, And The Public. Literature Has Become Consumptive. It Spits And Slobbers, Covers Its Blisters With Salve And Sticking-plaster, And Has Grown Bald From Too Much Hair-slicking. It Would Take Christ Of Art To Cure This Leper.
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Everyone, Either From Modesty Or Egotism, Hides Away The Best And Most Delicate Of His Soul’s Possessions; To Gain The Esteem Of Others, We Must Only Ever Show Our Ugliest Sides; This Is How We Keep Ourselves On The Common Level
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If You Knew All The Dreams I've Dreamed!
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A Thing Derided Is A Thing Dead; A Laughing Man Is Stronger Than A Suffering Man.
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The Finest Works Of Art Are Those In Which There Is The Least Matter. The Closer Expression Comes To Thought, The More The Word Clings To The Idea And Disappears, The More Beautiful The Work Of Art.
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The Whole Dream Of Democracy Is To Raise The Proletarian To The Level Of Stupidity Attained By The Bourgeois.
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Stupid
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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May I Die Like A Dog Rather Than Hasten The Ripening Of A Sentence By A Single Second!
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It's A Delicious Thing To Write. To Be No Longer Yourself But To Move In An Entire Universe Of Your Own Creating.
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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.
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A Rich Woman Seems To Have All Her Banknotes About Her, Guarding Her Virtue, Like A Cuirass, In The Lining Of Her Corset.
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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.
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Mediocrity Cherishes Rules; As For Me, I Hate Them; I Feel For Them And For Every Restriction, Corporation, Caste, Hierarchy, Level, Herd, A Loathing Which Fills My Soul, And It Is In This Respect Perhaps That I Understand Martyrdom.
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After The Pain Of This Disappointment Her Heart Once More Stood Empty, And The Succession Of Identical Days Began Again.
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Through Small Apertures We Glimpse Abysses Whose Sombre Depths Turn Us Faint. And Yet Over The Whole There Hovers An Extraordinary Tenderness.
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Maybe Happiness Too Is A Metaphor Invented On A Day Of Boredom
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For A Long Time Now My Heart Has Had Its Shutters Closed, Its Steps Deserted, Formerly A Tumultuous Hotel, But Now Empty And Echoing Like A Great Empty Tomb.
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One's Duty Is To Feel What Is Great, Cherish The Beautiful, And To Not Accept The Conventions Of Society With The Ignominy That It Imposes Upon Us.
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Adultery ... Could Be As Banal As Marriage.
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Everyone Became Brave From Excess Of Terror.
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Excess
(egypt) Is A Great Place For Contrasts: Splendid Things Gleam In The Dust.
Dust
Egypt
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Stupidity Is Something Unshakable; Nothing Attacks It Without Breaking Itself Against It; It Is Of The Nature Of Granite, Hard And Resistant.
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Literature
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What A Heavy Oar The Pen Is, And What A Strong Current Ideas Are To Row In!
Strong
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My God, This Novel Makes Me Break Out In A Cold Sweat! Do You Know How Much I've Written In Five Months, Since The End Of August? Sixty-five Pages! Each Paragraph Is Good In Itself And There Are Some Pages That Are Perfect. I Feel Certain. But Just Because Of This, It Isn't Getting On. It's A Series Of Well-turned, Ordered Paragraphs Which Do Not Flow On From Each Other. I Shall Have To Unscrew Them, Loosen The Joints, As One Does With The Masts Of A Ship When One Wants The Sail To Take More Wind.
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Earth Has Its Boundaries, But Human Stupidity Is Limitless.
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I Spent The Morning Putting In A Comma And The Afternoon Removing It.
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Here Is True Immorality: Ignorance And Stupidity; The Devil Is Nothing But This. His Name Is Legion.
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You Can't Find The Soul With A Scalpel.
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Writing This Book I Am Like A Man Playing The Piano With Lead Balls Attached To His Knuckles.
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Everything Is There: The Love Of Art.
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Beautiful
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Spoil
Tout Ce Qu'on Invente Est Vrai, Soi-en Sure. La Poesie Est Une Chose Aussi Precise Que La Geometrie.
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Precise
The Writer Must Wade Into Life As Into The Sea, But Only Up To The Navel.
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Wade
And The More He Was Irritated By Her Basic Personality, The More He Was Drawn To Her By A Harsh, Bestial Sensuality, Illusions Of A Moment, Which Ended In Hate.
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Talent Is Long Patience.
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Long
Whatever The Thing You Wish To Say, There Is But One Word To Express It, But One Verb To Give It Movement, But One Adjective To Qualify It; You Must Seek Until You Find This Noun, This Verb, This Adjective.
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Giving
Wish
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.
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Done
Melancholy Is A Sensual Pleasure That Is Deliberately Provoked. How Many People Shut Themselves Away To Make Themselves Sadder, Or To Weep Beside A Stream, Or Choose A Sentimental Book! We Are Constantly Building And Unbuilding Ourselves.
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She Loved The Sea For Its Storms Alone, Cared For Vegetation Only When It Grew Here And There Among Ruins. She Had To Extract A Kind Of Personal Advantage From Things And She Rejected As Useless Everything That Promised No Immediate Gratification — For Her Temperament Was More Sentimental Than Artistic, And What She Was Looking For Was Emotions, Not Scenery.
Sea
Storm
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One Day, I Shall Explode Like An Artillery Shell And All My Bits Will Be Found On The Writing Table.
Writing
One Day
Shells
The Faster The Word Sticks To The Thought, The More Beautiful Is The Effect.
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Sticks
One Mustn't Look At The Abyss, Because There Is At The Bottom An Inexpressible Charm Which Attracts Us.
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I Am A Man-pen. I Feel Through The Pen, Because Of The Pen.
Men
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Everything Depends On The Value We Give To Things. We Are The Ones Who Make Morality And Virtue. The Cannibal Who Eats His Neighbor Is As Innocent As The Child Who Sucks His Barley-sugar.
Children
Giving
Sugar
As You Get Older, The Heart Shed Its Leaves Like A Tree. You Cannot Hold Out Against Certain Winds. Each Day Tears Away A Few More Leaves; And Then There Are The Storms That Break Off Several Branches At One Go. And While Nature’s Greenery Grows Back Again In The Spring, That Of The Heart Never Grows Back.
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Read In Order To Live.
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Order
Talent Is Nothing But Long Patience.
Long
Talent
Long Patience
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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It Is Splendid To Be A Great Writer, To Put Men Into The Frying Pan Of Your Words And Make Them Pop Like Chestnuts.
Men
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I Don't Believe That Happiness Is Possible, But I Think Tranquility Is.
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Thinking
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The Public Wants Work Which Flatters Its Illusions.
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But Some Day Sooner Or Later Our Passion Would Have Cooled - Inevitably - It's The Way With Everything Human.
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Way
Sooner Or Later
We Swung Between Madness And Suicide ... It Was Beautiful!
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Reality Does Not Conform To The Ideal, But Confirms It.
Reality
Doe
Conformity
The Principal Thing In The World Is To Keep The Soul Aloft.
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Principal
Antiquite . En Tout Ce Qui S'y Rapporte: Est Poncif, Embe" Tant! Etc. Antiquity. And Everything To Do With It, Cliche D And Boring.
Etc
Boring
Cliche
There Was An Air Of Indifference About Them, A Calm Produced By The Gratification Of Every Passion; And Through Their Manners Were Suave, One Could Sense Beneath Them That Special Brutality Which Comes From The Habit Of Breaking Down Half-hearted Resistances That Keep One Fit And Tickle One’s Vanity—the Handling Of Blooded Horses, The Pursuit Of Loose Women.
Horse
Passion
Vanity
Judge The Goodness Of A Book By The Energy Of The Punches It Has Given You. I Believe The Greatest Characteristic Of Genius, Is, Above All, Force.
Believe
Book
Judging
As For The Piano, The Faster Her Fingers Flew Over It, The More He Marveled. She Struck The Keys With Aplomb And Ran From One End Of The Keyboard To The Other Without A Stop.
Keys
Piano
Keyboards
How We Keep These Dead Souls In Our Hearts. Each One Of Us Carries Within Himself His Necropolis.
Heart
Soul
Carrie
I Am Finding It Very Hard To Get My Novel Started. I Suffer From Stylistic Abscesses; And Sentences Keep Itching Without Coming To A Head.
Suffering
Novel
Sentences
We Must Laugh And Cry, Enjoy And Suffer, In A Word, Vibrate To Our Full Capacity … I Think That’s What Being Really Human Means.
Mean
Thinking
Laughing
Do Not Read, As Children Do, To Amuse Yourself, Or Like The Ambitious, For The Purpose Of Instruction. No, Read In Order To Live.
Inspirational
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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
Dark
Night
Sea Breeze
The Idea Of Bringing Someone Into The World Fills Me With Horror. I Would Curse Myself If I Were A Father. A Son Of Mine! Oh No, No, No! May My Entire Flesh Perish And May I Transmit To No One The Aggravations And The Disgrace Of Existence.
Father
Son
Aggravation
It Is Necessary To Sleep Upon The Pillow Of Doubt.
Sleep
Doubt
Pillow
… 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!
Heart
Lines
Empty
What An Elder Sees Sitting; The Young Can't See Standing.
Sitting
Standing Alone
Young
It Seems To Me... That I Have Always Lived! I Possess Memories That Go Back To The Pharoahs. I See Myself Very Clearly At Different Ages Of History, Practicing Different Professions... My Present Personality Is The Result Of My Lost [past] Personalities.
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Past
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Sometimes I Think I'm Liquefying Like An Old Camembert.
Thinking
Sometimes
I Sometimes Feel A Great Ennui, Profound Emptiness, Doubts Which Sneer In My Face In The Midst Of The Most Spontaneous Satisfactions. Well, I Would Not Exchange All That For Anything, Because It Seems To Me, In My Conscience, That I Am Doing My Duty, That I Am Obeying A Superior Fatality, That I Am Following The Good And That I Am In The Right.
Work
Profound
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Human Speech Is Like A Cracked Kettle On Which We Tap Crude Rhythms For Bears To Dance To, While We Long To Make Music That Will Melt The Stars.
Dance
Stars
Long
Style Is As Much Under The Words As In The Words. It Is As Much The Soul As It Is The Flesh Of A Work.
Soul
Style
Flesh
What Better Occupation, Really, Than To Spend The Evening At The Fireside With A Book, With The Wind Beating On The Windows And The Lamp Burning Bright...haven't You Ever Happened To Come Across In A Book Some Vague Notion That You've Had, Some Obscure Idea That Returns From Afar And That Seems To Express Completely Your Most Subtle Feelings?
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Wind
Ideas
The More Humanity Advances, The More It Is Degraded.
Aggravation
Humanity
Literature
I Do Not Like To "interest" The Public With Myself.
Self
Fame
Interest
Years Passed; And He Endured The Idleness Of His Intelligence And The Inertia Of His Heart.
Heart
Years
Inertia
Love, She Thought, Must Come Suddenly, With Great Outbursts And Lightnings,--a Hurricane Of The Skies, Which Falls Upon Life, Revolutionises It, Roots Up The Will Like A Leaf, And Sweeps The Whole Heart Into The Abyss.
Fall
Heart
Sky
Success As I See It Is A Result, Not A Goal.
Discipline
Goal
Entrepreneur
Noble Characters And Pure Affections And Happy Scenes Are Very Comforting Things. They're A Refuge From Life's Disillusionments.
Character
Comforting
Noble
I Will Cover You With Love When Next I See You, With Caresses, With Ecstasy. I Want To Gorge You With All The Joys Of The Flesh, So That You Faint And Die. I Want You To Be Amazed By Me, And To Confess To Yourself That You Had Never Even Dreamed Of Such Transports.... When You Are Old, I Want You To Recall Those Few Hours, I Want Your Dry Bones To Quiver With Joy When You Think Of Them.
Love
Sexy
Thinking
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?
Ocean
Moving
Sight
There Are Three Thing In The World I Love Most: The Sea, Hamlet, And Don Giovanni.
Sea
Three
World
Of All Possible Debauches, Traveling Is The Greatest That I Know; That's The One They Invented When They Got Tired Of All The Others.
Travel
Tired
Literature
I Hate That Which We Have Decided To Call Realism, Even Though I Have Been Made One Of Its High Priests.
Hate
Literature
Priests
The Deplorable Mania Of Doubt Exhausts Me. I Doubt About Everything, Even My Doubts.
Doubt
Literature
Mania
The Most Important Thing In The World Is To Hold Your Soul Aloft.
Karma
Fathers Day
Soul
Women Want You To Deceive Them: They Force You To, And If You Resist, They Blame You.
Marriage
Want
Blame
The Morality Of Art Is In Its Very Beauty.
Art
Philosophy
History
L'ide E Seule Est E Ternelle Et Ne Cessaire. The Idea Alone Is Eternal And Necessary.
Ideas
Eternal
Stupidity Lies In Wanting To Draw Conclusions.
Lying
Stupid
Conclusion
What An Awful Thing Life Is, Isn’t It? It’s Like Soup With Lots Of Hairs Floating On The Surface. You Have To Eat It Nevertheless.
Food
Hair
Floating
The Better A Work Is, The More It Attracts Criticism; It Is Like The Fleas Who Rush To Jump On White Linens.
White
Criticism
Fleas
There Are Two Infinities That Confuse Me: The One In My Soul Devours Me; The One Around Me Will Crush Me
Crush
Two
Soul
Put All Your Rage And Madness Into Your Work And Live As Orderly A Life As Possible.
Madness
Rage
Orderly
Ah! In Fact There Are Two Moralities ... The Petty One, The Conventional One, The One Devised By Men, That Keeps Changing And Bellows So Loudly, Making A Commotion Down Here Among Us, In A Perfectly Pedestrian Way ... But The Other One, The Eternal One, Is All Around And Above Us, Like A Landscape That Surrounds Us And The Blue Sky That Gives Us Light.
Men
Sky
Two
One Never Tires Of What Is Well Written, Style Is Life! It Is The Very Blood Of Thought!
Blood
Style
Literature
There Comes A Point At Which You Stop Writing And Think All The More
Writing
Thinking
Are The Days Of Winter Sunshine Just As Sad For You, Too? When It Is Misty, In The Evenings, And I Am Out Walking By Myself, It Seems To Me That The Rain Is Falling Through My Heart And Causing It To Crumble Into Ruins.
Rain
Fall
Heart
The Author, In His Work, Must Be Like God In The Universe, Present Everywhere And Visible Nowhere.
Visible
Fiction Writers
Universe
Come, Let’s Be Calm: No One Incapable Of Restraint Was Ever A Writer.
Writing
Calm
Restraint
The Cult Of Art Gives Pride; One Never Has Too Much Of It.
Art
Pride
Giving
The Rage For Wanting To Conclude Is One Of The Most Deadly And Most Fruitless Manias To Befall Humanity. Each Religion And Each Philosophy Has Pretended To Have God To Itself, To Measure The Infinite, And To Know The Recipe For Happiness. What Arrogance And What Nonsense! I See, To The Contrary, That The Greatest Geniuses And The Greatest Works Have Never Concluded.
Philosophy
Design
Humanity
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.
Congratulations
Blessing
Accomplishment
Madame Aubain's Servant Felicite Was The Envy Of The Ladies Of Pont-l'eveque For Half A Century.
Book
Envy
Half
To See One's Name In Print! Some People Commit A Crime For No Other Reason.
Names
People
Reason
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.
Average
Annoyed
States
Stupidity Is An Immovable Object: You Can't Try To Attack It Wiithout Being Broken By It.
Broken
Stupidity
Trying
Love, To Her, Was Something Hat Comes Suddenly, Like A Blinding Flash Of Lightening - A Heaven-sent Storm Hurled Into Life, Uprooting It, Sweeping Every Will Before It Like A Leaf, Engulfing All Feelings.
Heaven Sent
Feelings
Storm
Me And My Books In The Same Apartment, Like A Gherkin In Its Vinegar.
Food
Book
Home
Speech Is A Rolling Press That Always Amplifies One's Emotions.
Speech
Amplify
Rolling
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.
Vanity
Literature
Conviction
Stupidity Consists In Wanting To Reach Conclusions. We Are A Thread, And We Want To Know The Whole Cloth.
Wisdom
Reading
Knowledge
I'm Absolutely Removed From The World At Such Times...the Hours Go By Without My Knowing It. Sitting There I'm Wandering In Countries I Can See Every Detail Of - I'm Playing A Role In The Story I'm Reading. I Actually Feel I'm The Characters - I Live And Breath With Them.
Country
Reading
Character
Je Suis Autant Chinois Que Fran C° Ais. I Am As Much Chinese As French.
Chinese
Isn’t ‘not To Be Bored’ One Of The Principal Goals Of Life?
Boredom
Goal
Principal
Reveal Art; Conceal The Artist.
Art
Artist
Revelations
Didn't Love, Like A Plant From India, Require A Prepared Soil, A Particular Temperature? Sighs In The Moonlight, Long Embraces, Tears Flowing Over Hands Yielded To A Lover, All The Fevers Of The Flesh And The Languors Of Tenderness Thus Could Not Be Separated From The Balconies Of Great Châteaux Filled With Idle Amusements, A Boudoir With Silk Blinds, A Good Thick Carpet, Full Of Pots Of Flowers, And A Bed Raised On A Dais, Nor From The Sparkle Of Precious Stones And Shoulder Knots On Servants' Livery.
Love
Flower
Hands
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.
Heart
People
Bored
A Man, At Least, Is Free; He Can Explore Every Passion, Every Land, Overcome Obstacles, Taste The Most Distant Pleasures. But A Woman Is Continually Thwarted. Inert And Pliant At The Same Time, She Must Struggle Against Both The Softness Of Her Flesh And Subjection To The Law. Her Will, Like The Veil Tied To Her Hat By A String, Flutters With Every Breeze; There Is Always Some Desire Luring Her On, Some Convention Holding Her Back.
Women
Struggle
Passion
But The Most Wretched Thing, Is It Not-is To Drag Out, As I Do, A Useless Existence. If Our Pains Were Only Of Some Use To Someone, We Should Find Consolation In The Thought Of The Sacrifice.
Pain
Sacrifice
Use
Art Is Nothing Without Form.
Art
Form
Art Is
In The Dark Room A Cloud Of Yellow Dust Flew From Beneath The Tool Like A Scatter Of Sparks From Under The Hooves Of A Galloping Horse. The Twin Wheels Turned And Hummed. Binet Was Smiling, His Chin Down, His Nostrils Distended. He Seemed Lost In The Kind Of Happiness Which, As A Rule, Accompanies Only Those Mediocre Occupations That Tickle The Intelligence With Easy Difficulties, And Satisfy It With A Sense Of Achievement Beyond Which There Is Nothing Left For Dreams To Feed On.
Dream
Horse
Dark
Exuberance Is Better Than Taste.
Enthusiasm
Taste
Exuberance
But The Disparaging Of Those We Love Always Alienates Us From Them To Some Extent. We Must Not Touch Our Idols; The Gilt Comes Off In Our Hands.
Hands
Idols
Those We Love
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?
Stupid
Ideas
Admire
I Live Absolutely Like An Oyster.
Oysters
We Think Of Women At Every Age: While Still Children, We Fondle With A Naïve Sensuality The Breasts Of Those Grown-up Girls Kissing Us And Cuddling Us In Their Arms; At The Age Of Ten, We Dream Of Love; At Fifteen, Love Comes Along; At Sixty, It Is Still With Us, And If Dead Men In Their Tombs Have Any Thought In Their Heads, It Is How To Make Their Way Underground To The Nearby Grave, Lift The Shroud Of The Dear Departed Women, And Mingle With Her In Her Sleep
Love
Girl
Dream
Axiome: La Haine Du Bourgeois Est Le Commencement De La Vertu. Axiom: Hatred Of The Bourgeois Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.
Hatred
Commencement
Bourgeois
By Working One Can Bend Fortune. She Is Fond Of Crafty Men.
Men
Fortune
Crafty
Snicker On Hearing His Name: 'the Gentleman Who Thinks We Are Descended From The Apes.'
Science
Thinking
Names
A Friend Who Dies, It's Something Of You Who Dies.
Death
Loss
Friend Died
There Are Neither Good Nor Bad Subjects. From The Point Of View Of Pure Art, You Could Almost Establish It As An Axiom That The Subject Is Irrelevant, Style Itself Being An Absolute Manner Of Seeing Things.
Art
Views
Style
That Man Has Missed Something Who Has Never Left A Brothel At Sunrise Feeling Like Throwing Himself Into The River Out Of Pure Disgust.
Drinking
Men
Rivers
Abstraction Can Provide Stumbling Blocks For People Of Strange Intelligence.
Block
People
Strange
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.
Flower
Adventure
Phrases
By Trying To Understand Everything, Everything Makes Me Dream
Dream
Trying
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.'
Science
Men
Doctors
She Would Have Liked Not To Be Alive, Or To Be Always Asleep.
Alive
Everything, Even Herself, Was Now Unbearable To Her. She Wished That, Taking Wing Like A Bird, She Could Fly Somewhere, Far Away To Regions Of Purity, And There Grow Young Again.
Wings
Bird
Unbearable
The One Way Of Tolerating Existence Is To Lose Oneself In Literature As In A Perpetual Orgy.
Book
Literature
Way
What Baffled Him Was That There Should Be All This Fuss About Something So Simple As Love.
Simple
Baffled
Should
When You Reduce A Woman To Writing, She Makes You Think Of A Thousand Other Women
Writing
Thinking
Make You Think
Let Us Not Kid Ourselves; Let Us Remember That Literature Is Of No Use Whatever, Except In The Very Special Case Of Somebody's Wishing To Become, Of All Things, A Professor Of Literature.
Kids
Special
Wish
Thought Is The Greatest Of Pleasures —pleasure Itself Is Only Imagination—have You Ever Enjoyed Anything More Than Your Dreams?
Dream
Imagination
Pleasure
Madame Bovary Is Myself.
Literature
We Should Not Touch Our Idols: Their Gilding Will Remain On Our Hands.
Hands
Idols
Should
You Must Write For Yourself, Above All. That Is Your Only Hope Of Creating Something Beautiful.
Beautiful
Writing
Creating
Pleasure Is Found First In Anticipation, Later In Memory.
Memories
Firsts
Anticipation
Casting Aspersions On Those We Love Always Does Something To Loosen Our Ties. We Shouldn't Maltreat Our Idols: The Gilt Comes Off On Our Hands.
Hands
Idols
Ties
Emma Was No Asleep, She Was Pretending To Be Asleep; And, While He Was Dozing Off At Her Side, She Lay Awake, Dreaming Other Dreams.
Dream
Dozing
Sides
He Dreamed Of Funeral Love, But Dreams Crumble And The Tomb Abides
Dream
Funeral
Tombs
What Seems To Me The Highest And The Most Difficult Achievement Of Art Is Not To Make Us Laugh Or Cry, Or To Rouse Our Lust Or Our Anger, But To Do As Nature Does-that Is, Fill Us With Wonderment.
Art
Anger
Laughing
I Know Nothing More Noble Than The Contemplation Of The World.
Noble
World
Contemplation
I Like Prostitution. My Heart Has Never Failed To Pound At The Sight Of One Of Those Provocatively Dressed Women Walking In The Rain Under The Gaslamps, Just As The Sight Of Monks In Their Robes And Girdles Touches Some Ascetic, Hidden Corner Of My Soul.
Rain
Heart
Sight
Of All Lies, Art Is The Least Untrue.
Art
Lying
Art Is
On Certain Occasions Art Can Shake Very Ordinary Spirits, And Whole Worlds Can Be Revealed By Its Clumsiest Interpreters.
Art
Ordinary
World
Since You Are Now Studying Geometry And Trigonometry, I Will Give You A Problem. A Ship Sails The Ocean. It Left Boston With A Cargo Of Wool. It Grosses 200 Tons. It Is Bound For Le Havre. The Mainmast Is Broken, The Cabin Boy Is On Deck, There Are 12 Passengers Aboard, The Wind Is Blowing East-north-east, The Clock Points To A Quarter Past Three In The Afternoon. It Is The Month Of May. How Old Is The Captain?
Ocean
Math
Boys
But An Infinity Of Passions Can Be Contained In A Minute, Like A Crowd In A Tiny Space.
Passion
Space
Crowds
I Have The Handicap Of Being Born With A Special Language To Which I Alone Have The Key.
Keys
Special
Literature
Only Three Things Are Infinite. The Sky In Its Stars, The Sea In Its Drops Of Water, And The Heart In Its Tears.
Stars
Memorable
Heart
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.
Goal
Desire
Consequence
She Wanted To Die, But She Also Wanted To Live In Paris.
Paris
Wanted To Die
Wanted
One Must Laugh And Weep, Love, Work, Enjoy And Suffer, In Short Vibrate As Much As Possible In All His Being.
Laughing
Suffering
Enjoy
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.
Death
Believe
Feelings
Art Requires Neither Complaisance Nor Politeness; Nothing But Faith, Faith And Freedom.
Art
Literature
Politeness
What Is Glory? It Is To Have A Lot Of Nonsense Talked About You.
Nonsense
Glory
Fame
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