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The Public Wants Work Which Flatters Its Illusions.
-Gustave Flaubert
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The Public Wants Work

Gustave Flaubert
...
The Public Wants Work Which Flatters Its Illusions.

Understanding the Quote: "the public wants work which flatters its illusions...."

This quote by Gustave Flaubert reflects deeply on the theme of want. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Want, Flattery, Illusion, 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 want and flattery. 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
Want
Flattery
Illusion
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Nothing Is More Humiliating Than To See Idiots Succeed In Enterprises We Have Failed In.
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What Baffled Him Was That There Should Be All This Fuss About Something So Simple As Love.
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I Love Good Sense Above All, Perhaps Because I Have None.
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Everything Which One Invents Is True, Be Sure Of It.
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Stupidity Is An Immovable Object: You Can't Try To Attack It Wiithout Being Broken By It.
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I Am A Man-pen. I Feel Through The Pen, Because Of The Pen.
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Put All Your Rage And Madness Into Your Work And Live As Orderly A Life As Possible.
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It Is Necessary To Sleep Upon The Pillow Of Doubt.
Sleep
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I’m Dazzled By Your Facility. In Ten Days You’ll Have Written Six Stories! I Don’t Understand It… I’m Like One Of Those Old Aqueducts: There’s So Much Rubbish Cogging Up The Banks Of My Thought That It Flows Slowly, And Only Spills From The End Of My Pen Drop By Drop.
Aqueducts
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Flow
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.
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But An Infinity Of Passions Can Be Contained In A Minute, Like A Crowd In A Tiny Space.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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Come, Let’s Be Calm: No One Incapable Of Restraint Was Ever A Writer.
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Remembering The Ball Became For Emma A Daily Occupation. Every Time Wednesday Came Round, She Told Herself When She Woke Up: 'ah! One Week Ago...two Weeks Ago...three Weeks Ago, I Was There!' And, Little By Little, In Her Memory, The Faces All Blurred Together; She Forgot The Tunes Of The Quadrilles; No Longer Could She So Clearly Picture The Liveries And The Rooms; Some Details Disappeared, But The Yearning Remained.
Memories
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(egypt) Is A Great Place For Contrasts: Splendid Things Gleam In The Dust.
Dust
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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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Of All The Icy Blasts That Blow On Love, A Request For Money Is The Most Chilling.
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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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He Had The Vanity To Believe Men Did Not Like Him – While Men Simply Did Not Know Him.
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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.
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All You Have To Do To Make Something Interesting Is To Look At It Long Enough.
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The Citadel Of Machaerus Rose East Of The Dead Sea On A Basalt Peak Shaped Like A Cone, Girdled By Four Deep Valleys; Two About Its Sides, One In Front, And The Fourth Behind.
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I Have Patience In All Things - As Far As The Antechamber.
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What Is Glory? It Is To Have A Lot Of Nonsense Talked About You.
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Criticism Occupies The Lowest Place In The Literary Hierarchy: As Regards Form, Almost Always; And As Regards Moral Value, Incontestably. It Comes After Rhyming Games And Acrostics, Which At Least Require A Certain Inventiveness.
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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!
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Madame Aubain's Servant Felicite Was The Envy Of The Ladies Of Pont-l'eveque For Half A Century.
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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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There Are Three Thing In The World I Love Most: The Sea, Hamlet, And Don Giovanni.
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And Indeed, What Is Better Than To Sit By One's Fireside In The Evening With A Book, While The Wind Beats Against The Window And The Lamp Is Buring?
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[t]he Truth Is That Fullness Of Soul Can Sometimes Overflow In Utter Vapidity Of Language, For None Of Us Can Ever Express The Exact Measure Of His Needs Or His Thoughts Or His Sorrows; And 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.
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Each Dream Finds At Last Its Form; There Is A Drink For Every Thirst, And Love For Every Heart. And There Is No Better Way To Spend Your Life Than In The Unceasing Preoccupation Of An Idea--of An Ideal.
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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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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.
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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. The Ordinary Person Today Lives Better Than A King Did A Century Ago But Is Ungrateful!
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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.
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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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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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Antiquite . En Tout Ce Qui S'y Rapporte: Est Poncif, Embe" Tant! Etc. Antiquity. And Everything To Do With It, Cliche D And Boring.
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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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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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What Is Beautiful Is Moral, That Is All There Is To 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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Love Is A Springtime Plant That Perfumes Everything With Its Hope, Even The Ruins To Which It Clings.
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Spring
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Marriage
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Blame
Cold. Healthier Than Heat.
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Dark
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Art
Lying
Art Is
Success Is A Consequence And Must Not Be A Goal.
Success
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And He Beholds The Moon; Like A Rounded Fragment Of Ice Filled With Motionless Light.
Moon
Light
Ice
My Foregrounds Are Imaginary, My Backgrounds Real.
Real
Writing
Backgrounds
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.
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Stupid
Literature
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The Faster The Word Sticks To The Thought, The More Beautiful Is The Effect.
Beautiful
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There Are Two Infinities That Confuse Me: The One In My Soul Devours Me; The One Around Me Will Crush Me
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Two
Soul
Boredom, That Silent Spider, Was Spinning Its Web In The Darkness In Every Corner Of Her Heart.
Heart
Blessing
Boredom
It Is Always Sad To Leave A Place To Which One Knows One Will Never Return.
Return
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Farming -- A Vocation Accursed Of Heaven, Since One Never Saw A Millionaire Involved In It.
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You Must Write For Yourself, Above All. That Is Your Only Hope Of Creating Something Beautiful.
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Writing
Creating
The Most Important Thing In The World Is To Hold Your Soul Aloft.
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Read In Order To Live.
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Order
They Took Each Other's Advice, Opened One Book, Went Over To Another, Then Did Not Know What To Decide When Opinions Diverged So Widely.
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A Thing Derided Is A Thing Dead; A Laughing Man Is Stronger Than A Suffering Man.
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Men
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Reveal Art; Conceal The Artist.
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Earth Has Its Boundaries, But Human Stupidity Is Limitless.
Stupidity
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Limitless
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?
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The Most Important Quality Of Art And Its Aim Is Illusion; Emotion, Which Is Often Obtained By Certain Sacrifices Of Poetic Detail, Is Something Else Entirely And Of An Inferior Order.
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By Dint Of Railing At Idiots, One Runs The Risk Of Becoming An Idiot Oneself.
Running
Risk
Becoming
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Love
Flower
Hands
To See One's Name In Print! Some People Commit A Crime For No Other Reason.
Names
People
Reason
Doubt … Is An Illness That Comes From Knowledge And Leads To Madness.
Doubt
Madness
Illness
A Friend Who Dies, It's Something Of You Who Dies.
Death
Loss
Friend Died
For Him The Universe Did Not Extend Beyond The Circumference Of Her Petticoat.
Universe
To Be Stupid, Selfish, And Have Good Health Are Three Requirements For Happiness, Though If Stupidity Is Lacking, All Is Lost.
Happiness
Selfish
Stupid
The Author, In His Work, Must Be Like God In The Universe, Present Everywhere And Visible Nowhere.
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Fiction Writers
Universe
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
What An Elder Sees Sitting; The Young Can't See Standing.
Sitting
Standing Alone
Young
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Heaven Sent
Feelings
Storm
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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Reading
Writing
For Some Men, The Stronger Their Desire, The More Difficult It Is For Them To Act.
Men
Desire
Stronger
One Mustn't Look At The Abyss, Because There Is At The Bottom An Inexpressible Charm Which Attracts Us.
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Looks
Charm
Through Small Apertures We Glimpse Abysses Whose Sombre Depths Turn Us Faint. And Yet Over The Whole There Hovers An Extraordinary Tenderness.
Life
Glimpse
Aperture
The Cult Of Art Gives Pride; One Never Has Too Much Of It.
Art
Pride
Giving
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Habit
Excellent
The Style, Which Is Something I Take To Heart, Is Getting On My Nerves Horribly. It Frustrates And Torments Me. I Have Days When Iam Sick About It And Nights When It Gives Me A Fever. The More I Go At It The More I Find Myself Incapable Of Conveying The Idea.
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Night
On Spinach: I Dislike It, And Am Happy To Dislike It Because If I Liked It I Would Eat It, And I Cannot Stand It.
Food
Cooking
Culinary
You'll Always Have To Deal With Bastards, Being Lied To, Deceived, Slandered And Ridiculed, But That's To Be Expected And You Must Thank Heaven When You Meet The Exception.
Heaven
Being Lied
Goodness
Years Passed; And He Endured The Idleness Of His Intelligence And The Inertia Of His Heart.
Heart
Years
Inertia
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
Talent Is A Long Patience.
Long
Talent
Long Patience
She Remembered The Heroines Of Novels She Had Read, And The Lyrical Legion Of Those Adulterous Women Began To Sing In Her Memory With Sisterly Voices That Enchanted Her. Now She Saw Herself As One Of Those Amoureuses Whom She Had So Envied: She Was Becoming, In Reality, One Of That Gallery Of Fictional Figures; The Long Dream Of Her Youth Was Coming True.
Dream
Memories
Reality
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
Be Orderly And Disciplined In Daily Life, Like A Good Bourgeois, So That I Might Be Wild And Violent In My Art.
Art
Might
Daily Life
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
Strong
Wall
A Rich Woman Seems To Have All Her Banknotes About Her, Guarding Her Virtue, Like A Cuirass, In The Lining Of Her Corset.
Riches
Guarding
Wealth
I Love My Work With A Frenetic And Perverse Love, As An Ascetic Loves The Hair Shirt Which Scratches His Belly.
Hair
Scratches
Shirts
The Deplorable Mania Of Doubt Exhausts Me. I Doubt About Everything, Even My Doubts.
Doubt
Literature
Mania
He Dreamed Of Funeral Love, But Dreams Crumble And The Tomb Abides
Dream
Funeral
Tombs
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
The Art Of Writing Is The Art Of Discovering What You Believe.
Inspirational
Life
Art
She Was The Amoureuse Of All The Novels, The Heroine Of All The Plays, The Vague “she” Of All The Poetry Books.
Book
Play
Heroines
L'ide E Seule Est E Ternelle Et Ne Cessaire. The Idea Alone Is Eternal And Necessary.
Ideas
Eternal
I Believe That If One Always Looked At The Skies, One Would End Up With Wings.
Nature
Believe
Sky
Je Suis Autant Chinois Que Fran C° Ais. I Am As Much Chinese As French.
Chinese
Woman Is A Vulgar Animal From Whom Man Has Created An Excessively Beautiful Ideal.
Beautiful
Animal
Men
To Be Simple Is No Small Matter.
Simple
Matter
Tout Ce Qu'on Invente Est Vrai, Soi-en Sure. La Poesie Est Une Chose Aussi Precise Que La Geometrie.
Mathematics
Precise
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
I Had, As I Told You, A Great Passion While Still Almost A Child. When It Was Over, I Divided Myself In Two, Placing On One Side The Soul I Kept For Art, And On The Other, My Body, Which Would Have To Fend For Itself.
Love
Art
Children
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.
Heart
Character
Forget Everything
I Have The Handicap Of Being Born With A Special Language To Which I Alone Have The Key.
Keys
Special
Literature
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
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.
Birthday
Age
Today
As Words Have An Effective Power Of Their Own, Curses Reported Against Someone Might Turn Against The Speaker.
Might
Curse
Turns
Be Regular And Orderly In Your Life, So That You May Be Violent And Original In Your Work.
Inspirational
Life
Work
The Hearts Of Women Are Like Those Little Pieces Of Furniture With Secret Hiding - Places, Full Of Drawers Fitted Into Each Other; You Go A Lot Of Trouble, Break Your Nails, And In The Bottom Find Some Withered Flower, A Few Grains Of Dust - Or Emptiness!
Flower
Heart
Dust
By Trying To Understand Everything, Everything Makes Me Dream
Dream
Trying
One Can Be The Master Of What One Does, But Never Of What One Feels.
I Hate You
Doe
Masters
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
One Mustn't Always Believe That Feeling Is Everything. In The Arts, It Is Nothing Without Form.
Art
Believe
Feelings
You Can't Find The Soul With A Scalpel.
Soul
Scalpels
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.
Book
People
Sensual
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
There Comes A Point At Which You Stop Writing And Think All The More
Writing
Thinking
Writing History Is Like Drinking An Ocean And Pissing A Cupful.
Drinking
Ocean
Writing
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
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.
Hate
Personality
Irritated
Sometimes I Think I'm Liquefying Like An Old Camembert.
Thinking
Sometimes
One Must Laugh And Weep, Love, Work, Enjoy And Suffer, In Short Vibrate As Much As Possible In All His Being.
Laughing
Suffering
Enjoy
Isn’t ‘not To Be Bored’ One Of The Principal Goals Of Life?
Boredom
Goal
Principal
We Swung Between Madness And Suicide ... It Was Beautiful!
Beautiful
Depression
Suicide
Noble Characters And Pure Affections And Happy Scenes Are Very Comforting Things. They're A Refuge From Life's Disillusionments.
Character
Comforting
Noble
A Memory Is A Beautiful Thing, It's Almost A Desire That You Miss.
Missing You
Beautiful
Memories
God Is Only A Word Dreamed Up To Explain The World
World
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.
Beautiful
Flannels
Cherish
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
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
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
If You Knew All The Dreams I've Dreamed!
Dream
Ifs
For Every Bourgeois, In The Heat Of Youth, If Only For A Day, For A Minute, Has Believed Himself Capable Of Immense Passions, Of Heroic Enterprises. The Most Mediocre Libertine Has Dreamed Of Oriental Princesses; Every Rotary Carries About Inside Him The Debris Of A Poet.
Princess
Passion
Rotary
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
Exuberance Is Better Than Taste.
Enthusiasm
Taste
Exuberance
I Spent The Morning Putting In A Comma And The Afternoon Removing It.
Morning
Afternoon
May I Die Like A Dog Rather Than Hasten The Ripening Of A Sentence By A Single Second!
Dog
May
Ripening
Writing This Book I Am Like A Man Playing The Piano With Lead Balls Attached To His Knuckles.
Book
Writing
Men
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
Axiome: La Haine Du Bourgeois Est Le Commencement De La Vertu. Axiom: Hatred Of The Bourgeois Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.
Hatred
Commencement
Bourgeois
Everything One Invents Is True, You May Be Perfectly Sure Of That. Poetry Is As Precise As Geometry.
Poetry
Literature
May
Concern For Morality Makes Every Work Of The Imagination False And Stupid.
Stupid
Imagination
Morality
I Tried To Discover, In The Rumor Of Forests And Waves, Words That Other Men Could Not Hear, And I Pricked Up My Ears To Listen To The Revelation Of Their Harmony.
Inspirational
Men
Rumor
The Morality Of Art Is In Its Very Beauty.
Art
Philosophy
History
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.
Art
Men
Numbers
Travel Makes One Modest. You See What A Tiny Place You Occupy In The World.
Inspirational
Travel
Adventure
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.
Funny Life
Writing
Sound
We Have All Been Beaten! Each One Has To Bear His Misfortune! Resign Yourself!
Bears
Beaten
Misfortunes
Madame Bovary Is Myself.
Literature
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
It’s Hard To Communicate Anything Exactly And That’s Why Perfect Relationships Between People Are Difficult To Find.
Relationship
People
Perfect
The More You Approach Infinity, The Deeper You Penetrate Terror
Infinity
Terror
Approach
I Have No Use For The Kind Of God Who Goes Walking In His Garden With A Stick, Sends His Friends To Live In The Bellies Of Whales, Gives Up The Ghost With A Groan And Then Comes Back To Life Three Days Later!
Giving Up
Garden
Whales
Beautiful Things Spoil Nothing.
Beautiful
Beautiful Things
Spoil
You Don’t Make Art Out Of Good Intentions.
Art
Good Intentions
Intention
But Some Day Sooner Or Later Our Passion Would Have Cooled - Inevitably - It's The Way With Everything Human.
Passion
Way
Sooner Or Later
She Was As Sated With Him As He Was Tired Of Her. Emma Had Rediscovered In Adultery All The Banality Of Marriage.
Tired
Adultery
Emma
The Principal Thing In The World Is To Keep The Soul Aloft.
Soul
World
Principal
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