Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadnโt come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to imagine just what was meant, in life, by the words โbliss,โ โpassion,โ and โraptureโ - words that had seemed so beautiful to her in books.
Gustave FlaubertEveryone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soulโs possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level
Gustave FlaubertOur ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. The ordinary person today lives better than a king did a century ago but is ungrateful!
Gustave FlaubertThere are in me, in literary terms, two distinct characters: one who is taken with roaring, with lyricism, with soaring aloft, with all the sonorities of phrase and summits of thought; and the other who digs and scratches for truth all he can, who is as interested in the little facts as the big ones, who would like to make you feel materially the things he reproduces.
Gustave Flaubert