Quote #3
One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier.
More from Gustave Flaubert
- Quelle atroce invention que celle du bourgeois, n'est-ce pas?
- An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.
- One must not always think that feeling is everything. Art is nothing without form.
- The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a father. A son of mine! Oh no, no, no! Ma…
- You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.
- Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
- The artist must be in his work as God is in creation, invisible and all-powerful; one must sense him everywhere but never see him.
- Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, read to live.