Years passed; and he endured the idleness of his intelligence and the inertia of his heart.

Be orderly and disciplined in daily life, like a good bourgeois, so that I might be wild and violent in my art.

Criticism occupies the lowest place in the literary hierarchy: as regards form, almost always; and as regards moral value, incontestably. It comes after rhyming games and acrostics, which at least require a certain inventiveness.

Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.

DAGUERREOTYPE Will take the place of painting. (See PHOTOGRAPHY.) (From The Dictionary of Received Ideas, assembled from notes Flaubert made in the 1870s.)

What is beautiful is moral, that is all there is to it.

What is glory? It is to have a lot of nonsense talked about you.