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The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand QUOTES

The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand QUOTES

1 " How badly arranged the world is. What is the purpose of ugliness, suffering, sadness? Why our powerless dreams? Why everything? "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

2 " Contact with the world, with which I have been steadily rubbing shoulders now for fourteen months, makes me feel more and more like returning to my shell. I hate the crowd, the herd. It seems to me always atrociously stupid or vile. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

3 " This sense of my own weakness and emptiness comforts me. I feel myself a mere speck of dust lost in space, yet I am part of that endless grandeur which envelopes me. I could never see why that should be cause for despair, since there could very well be nothing at all behind the black curtain. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

4 " Je ne suis pas plus moderne qu'ancien, pas plus Français que Chinois, et l'idée de la patrie c'est-à-dire l'obligation où l'on est de vivre sur un coin de terre marqué en rouge ou en bleu sur la carte et de détester les autres coins en vert ou en noir m'a paru toujours étroite, bornée et d'une stupidité féroce. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

5 " Il faut mettre son cœur dans l'art, son esprit dans le commun du monde, son corps où il se trouve bien, sa bourse dans sa poche, son espoir nulle part. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

6 " But how nothingness invades us! We are scarcely born ere decay begins for us, in such a way that the whole of life is but one long combat with it, more and more triumphant, on its part, to the consummation, namely, death; and then the reign of decay is exclusive. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

7 " you must - do you hear me, young man? - you must work more than you are doing! "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

8 " All that has to do with life is repugnant to me; everything that draws me to it horrifies me. I should like never to have been born, or to die. I have within me, deep within me, a distaste which keeps me from enjoying anything and which fills my soul to the point of suffocating it. It reappears in relation to everything, like the bloated bodies of dogs which come back to the surface of the water despite the stones that have been tied to their necks to drown them. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

9 " When you are some-'one', why would you wish to be some-'thing'? "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

10 " J'ai rêvé la gloire quand j'étais tout enfant, et maintenant je n'ai même plus l'orgueil de la médiocrité. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

11 " Znaš li da je mladi školski naraštaj silno glup ? Nekada je imao više pameti; zabavljao se ženama, mačevanjem, orgijama; sad se doteruje po Bajronu, sanja o očaju i do mile volje okiva sebi srce ... Utrkuju se ko će imati bleđe lice i najlepše reći : sit sam sveta ! Sit sveta ! Žalosno zaista : sit sveta u osamnaestoj godini ! Zar ne postoji više ljubav, slava, poslovi ? Zar je sve umrlo ? Nema više prirode, nema cveća za mladog čoveka ? Ostavimo se jednom toga. Dajmo se na tugu u umetnosti, pošto više osećamo tu stranu, ali dajmo se veselju u životu; neka puca zapušač, neka se drolja svlači, sto mu muka ! Pa ako nam neke večeri, u sumrak, dok za jedan čas traju magla i sneg, dođe neka dosada života, pustimo je neka dođe, ali ne često. Treba sebi češati srce s vremena na vreme sa malo bola, da sva gamad sa njega spadne. To je to što tebi savetujem, što se ja trudim da primenim. – Ernestu Ševalijeu, 15. Aprila 1839 "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

12 " Ti se nadaš da čuješ nešto više o Viktoru Igou. Šta mogu da ti o njemu kažem ? To je čovek kao i svaki drugi, sa dosta ružnim licem i dosta prostom spoljašnjošću. Ima izvaredne zube i veličanstveno čelo, bez obrva, bez trepavica. Malo govori, izgleda da pazi na sebe i da neće da govori više nego što treba; vrlo je učtiv i pomalo usiljen. Veoma mi se sviđa zvuk njegovog glasa. Imao sam uživanje da ga posmatram izbliza; gledao sam ga sa čuđenjem, kao neku kasicu u kojoj bi se nalazili milioni i kraljevski dijamanti, razmišljajući o svemu što je izišlo iz tog čoveka, koji je tada sedeo pored mene na jednoj maloj stolici, i stalno upirući oči u njegovu desnu ruku, koja je napisala toliko lepih stvari. A to je, međutim, bio čovek zbog koga mi je najviše zakucalo srce otkad sam na svetu, i možda čovek koga sam najviše voleo od svih onih koje ne poznajem. Govorilo se o pogubljenjima, o osvetama, o lopovima, itd. Taj veliki čovek i ja upravo smo najviše razgovarali; ne sećam se više da li sam rekao pametne stvari ili glupe, ali sam ih rekao prilično mnogo. – Sestri, Pariz januara 1843. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

13 " On peut juger de la bonté d'un livre à la vigueur des coups de poing qu'il vous a donnés et à la longueur de temps qu'on est ensuite à en revenir. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

14 " El genio lo da Dios, pero el talento es cosa nuestra; con una inteligencia recta, amor a lo que se hace y una paciencia sin desfallecimientos, se llega a tenerlo "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

15 " Cela rend modeste de voyager. On voit quelle petite place on occupe dans le monde. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

16 " ...Je n’ai pas cessé de l’être si c’est d’être jeune que d’aimer toujours !... L’humanité n’est pas un vain mot. Notre vie est faite d’amour, et ne plus aimer c’est ne plus vivre."
(I have never ceased to be young, if being young is always loving... Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is made of love, and to love no longer is to live no longer.) "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

17 " A hundred times in life," she declares, "the good that one does seems to serve no immediate purpose; yet it maintains in one way and another the tradition of well wishing and well doing, without which all would perish. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

18 " For her, finally, the literary art is an instrument of social salvation—it is her means of touching the world with her ideals, her love, her aspiration; for him the literary art is the avenue of escape from the meaningless chaos of existence—it is his subtly critical condemnation of the world. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand

19 " The correspondence of George Sand and Gustave Flaubert, if approached merely as a chapter in the biographies of these heroes of nineteenth century letters, is sufficiently rewarding. "

― Gustave Flaubert , The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert George Sand: Flaubert - Sand