Gustave Flaubert Quotes

French novelist (1821–1880)

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Gustave Flaubert (December 12 1821 – May 8 1880) was an influential French writer who was perhaps the leading exponent of literary realism of his country. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), for his Correspondence, and for his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics.

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Alternative Names: Flaubert

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The man is nothing, the work — all. (December 1875)

L'homme n'est rien, l'oeuvre – tout

Axiom: hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom. But I include in the word bourgeois, the bourgeois in blouses as well the bourgeois in coats. It is we and we alone, that is to say the literary men, who are the people, or to say it better: the tradition of humanity. (10 May 1867)

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. (8 September 1871)

Notre ignorance de l'histoire nous fait calomnier notre temps.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity. (4 or 5 October 1871)

Tout le rêve de la démocratie est d'élever le prolétaire au niveau de bêtise du bourgeois.

Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live. (June 1857)

The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him. (18 March 1857)

Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry. (14 August 1853)

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. (14 June 1853)

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. (11 December 1852)

An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. (9 December 1852)

One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier. (22 October 1846)

What a horrible invention, the bourgeois, don't you think? (22 September 1846)