If you participate in life, you donโt see it clearly: you suffer from it too much or enjoy it too much. The artist, to my way of thinking, is a monstrosity, something outside nature. All the misfortunes Providence inflicts on him come from his stubborness in denying that maxim.
Gustave FlaubertI go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something โ the eternal โwhatโs the use?โ โ sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis.
Gustave FlaubertBe orderly and disciplined in daily life, like a good bourgeois, so that I might be wild and violent in my art.
Gustave FlaubertAlways 'duty.' I am sick of the word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone into our ears 'Duty, duty!' Ah! by Jove! one's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.
Gustave Flaubert