A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust.

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

One mustn't always believe that feeling is everything. In the arts, it is nothing without form.

I know nothing more noble than the contemplation of the world.

There is no truth. There is only perception.

Doesn't it seem to you," asked Madame Bovary, "that the mind moves more freely in the presence of that boundless expanse, that the sight of it elevates the soul and gives rise to thoughts of the infinite and the ideal?