The collection / 184 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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184 results · Page 6 of 8Play this collection ▷

01Undated

Just when the gods had ceased to be, and the Christ had not yet come, there was a unique moment in history, between Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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02Undated

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?

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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03Undated

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.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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04Undated

Talent is a long patience, and originality an effort of will and intense observation.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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05Undated

I have patience in all things – as far as the antechamber.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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06Undated

Charles went to kiss her shoulder.-Leave me alone! she said, you're creasing my dress.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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07Undated

And on the endless dusty ribbon of the highway, on sunken roads vaulted over by branches, on paths between stands of grain that rose to his knees, the sun on his shoulders and the morning air in his nostrils, his heart full of the night's bliss, his spirit at peace and his flesh content, he would ride on his way ruminating his happiness, like someone who keeps savoring, hours later, the fragrance of the truffles he has eaten for dinner.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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08Undated

Some details escaped her, but the regret remained with her.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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09Undated

Has it ever happened to you," Léon went on, "to come across some vague idea of one's own in a book, some dim image that comes to you from afar, and as the completest expression of your own slightest sentiment?

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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10Undated

Having no intercourse with anyone, she lived in the torpid state of a sleep-walker.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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11Undated

This sense of my own weakness and emptiness comforts me. I feel myself a mere speck of dust lost in space, yet I am part of that endless grandeur which envelopes me. I could never see why that should be cause for despair, since there could very well be nothing at all behind the black curtain.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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12Undated

...but now the love of Charles for Emma seemed to her a desertion from her tenderness, an encroachment upon what was hers, and she watched her son's happiness in sad silence, as a ruined man looks through the windows at people dining in his old house.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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13Undated

I believe in Supreme Being, a Creator, whoever he may be, it's of no importance to me, who put us here on earth to do our duty as citizens and fathers; but I don't need to go to church and kiss silver platters and dig into my pocket to fatten up a lot of humbugs who eat better than you or I do! Because he can be worshiped just as well in a wood, a field, or even just gazing at the ethereal vault, like the ancients.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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14Undated

Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the solitary waster of her life, seeking some white sail in the distant mists of the horizon. She had no idea by what wind it would reach her, toward what shore it would bear her, or what kind of craft it would be – tiny boat or towering vessel, laden with heartbreaks or filled to the gunwhales with rapture. But every morning when she awoke she hoped that today would be the day; she listened for every sound, gave sudden starts, was surprised when nothing happened; and then, sadder with each succeeding sunset, she longed for tomorrow.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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15Undated

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

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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16Undated

Irony takes nothing away from pathos.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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17Undated

Never have things of the spirit counted for so little. Never has hatred for everything great been so manifest – disdain for beauty, execration of literature. I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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18Undated

How wonderful to find in living creatures the same substance as those which make up minerals. Nevertheless they felt a sort of humiliation at the idea that their persons contained phosphorous like matches, albumen like white of egg, hydrogen gas like street lamps.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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19Undated

It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.” ― Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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20Undated

You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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21Undated

Pleasures, like schoolboys in a school courtyard, had so trampled upon his heart that no green thing grew there, and that which passed through it, more heedless than children, did not even, like them, leave a name carved upon the wall.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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22Undated

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

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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23Undated

Read in oreder to live

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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24Undated

Not a lawyer but carries within him the debris of a poet.

Gustave Flaubert / quote

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