“If you want to be happy, it is necessary not to be too intelligent.” — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“He took it for granted that she was content; and she resented his settled calm, his serene dullness, the very happiness she… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
She (Madame Bovary) had that indefinable beauty that comes from happiness, enthusiasm, success - a beauty that is nothing more or less… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“Future joys are like tropical shores; like a fragrant breeze, they extend their innate softness to the immense inland world of past… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“It seemed to her that certain parts of the world must produce happiness as they produced peculiar plants which will flourish nowhere… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox:… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“And on the endless dusty ribbon of the highway, on sunken roads vaulted over by branches, on paths between stands of grain… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“How did you expect me to live without you? Once you've known happiness it's impossible to get used to not having it.… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
“...but now the love of Charles for Emma seemed to her a desertion from her tenderness, an encroachment upon what was hers,… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
The rage for wanting to conclude is one of the most deadly and most fruitless manias to befall humanity. Each religion and… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
In the dark room a cloud of yellow dust flew from beneath the tool like a scatter of sparks from under the… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share Image
As for the piano, the faster her fingers flew over it, the more he marveled. She struck the keys with aplomb and ran from… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opinion, is a… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
“When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
“But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows,… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
The writer must wade into life as into the sea, but only up to the navel. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
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… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
One's existence should be in two parts: one should live like a bourgeois and think like a demigod. — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
Emma was no asleep, she was pretending to be asleep; and, while he was dozing off at her side, she lay awake, dreaming other… — Gustave Flaubert Copy Share
