Ascend skyward forever and forever,–yet thou wilt not attain the summit. Descend below the earth for billions of billions of centuries: never wilt thou reach the bottom. For there is no summit, there is no bottom; there is no Above, no Below – there is no end.

— Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert Quotes

Un infini de passions peut tenir dans une minute, comme une foule dans un petit espace.

— Gustave Flaubert

The next day, for Emma, was funereal. Everything appeared to her shrouded in a black mist that hovered uncertainly over the surface of things, and grief plunged deep into her soul, moaning softly like the winter wind in an abandonded chateau. She sank into that kind of brooding which comes when you lose something forever, that lassitude you feel after every irreversible event, that pain you suffer when a habitual movement is interrupted, when a long-sustained vibration is suddenly broken off.

— Gustave Flaubert

And all the time, deep within her, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a shipwrecked sailor she scanned her solitude with desperate eyes for the sight of a white sail far off on the misty horizon. She had no idea what that chance would be, what wind would waft it to her, where it would set her ashore, whether it was a launch or a three-decker, laden with anguish or filled to the portholes with happiness. But every morning when she woke she hoped to find it there.

— Gustave Flaubert

Would this misery last for ever? Was there no escape? Was she not quite as good as all the lucky women? She had seen duchesses at La Vaubyessard with clumsier waists and commoner ways than she; she cursed the injustice of God. She propped her head against the wall and wept, for envy of those hectic lives, the shameless pleasure-seeking, the masked balls, and all the wild delights, unknown to her, that they must afford.

— Gustave Flaubert

Dietro le Tuileries, il cielo si tingeva di ardesia, gli alberi del giardino formavano due masse enormi, violacee in alto. Si accendevano i lampioni a gas, e la Senna, verdastra in tutta la sua estensione, si lacerava in un marezzo d’argento contro i pilastri del ponte.

— Gustave Flaubert

She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would call him George; and this idea of having a male child was like an expected revenge for all her impotence in the past. A man, at least, is free; he may travel over passions and over countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most far-away pleasures. But a woman is always hampered.

— Gustave Flaubert

ABSINTHE – Extra-violent poison: one glass and you are dead. Journalists drink it while writing their articles. Has killed more soldiers than the Bedouins.

— Gustave Flaubert

AMBITION – Always preceded by “mad” when it lacks nobility.

— Gustave Flaubert

ART – Leads to the poorhouse. What’s the use of it, since we’re replacing it with machines that do better and work faster?

— Gustave Flaubert

Argent. Cause de tout le mal.

— Gustave Flaubert

L’argent ne fait pas le bonheur.

— Gustave Flaubert

BALLOONS – With balloons we will end up going to the moon. We shan’t be able to navigate them any time soon.

— Gustave Flaubert

Darwin. Celui qui dit que nous descendons du singe.

— Gustave Flaubert

Sometimes your words come back to me like a distant echo, like the sound of a bell carried by the wind, and when I read love passages in. books, it seems to me that it is you about whom I am reading.

— Gustave Flaubert

Then, the anxiety occasioned by her change of state, or perhaps a certain agitation caused by the presence of this man had sufficed to make her believe herself possessed at last of that wonderful passion which hitherto had hovered above her like a great bird of rosy plumage in the splendor of a poetic heaven... But she could hardly persuade herself that the quietness of her present life was the happiness of her dreams.

— Gustave Flaubert

Emma tried to find out what one meant exactly in life by the words felicity, passion, rapture, that had seemed to her so beautiful in books.

— Gustave Flaubert

Whereas a man, surely, should know about everything; excel in a multitude of activities, introduce you to passion in all its force, to life in all its grace, initiate you into all mysteries! But this one had nothing to teach; knew nothing, wanted nothing.

— Gustave Flaubert

She had purchased for herself a blotting-case, stationery, a penholder and some envelopes, although she had no one to write to; she wiped the dust off her shelves, looked at herself in the mirror, took down a book, then, dreaming between the lines, let it fall in her lap. She had a desire to travel, or to go back and live at her convent. She wished both to die and to live in Paris.

— Gustave Flaubert

The reminiscences, far too numerous, on which he dwelt produced a disheartening effect on him; he went no further with the work, and his mental vacuity redoubled.

— Gustave Flaubert

Estomac. Toutes les maladies viennent de l’estomac6.

— Gustave Flaubert
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