Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

"Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything."

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."

"Of all lies, art is the least untrue."

"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."

"A friend who dies, it's something of you who dies."

"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."

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."

"Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings."

"Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."

"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."

"Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry."

"Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry."

"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 requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom."