Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 May 8, 1880) was a French novelist who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel Madame Bovary and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style, best exemplified by his endless search for le mot juste ("the precise word"). He was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, in the Haute-Normandie Region of France.

5 Quotes

Read in order to live.

Gustave Flaubert

The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.

Gustave Flaubert

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.

Gustave Flaubert

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

Gustave Flaubert

All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

Gustave Flaubert