Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.

By dint of railing at idiots, one runs the risk of becoming an idiot oneself.

But some day sooner or later our passion would have cooled - inevitably - it's the way with everything human.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attracts us.

That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.

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