Quotes by Gustave Flaubert

I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.

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.

The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens.

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

One mustn’t ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

There is no truth. There is only perception.

Success is a consequence and must not be a goal.

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.

All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.