Quote #33

My God is the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, of Beranger! My credo is the credo of Rousseau! I adhere to the immortal principles of '89! I have no use for the kind of God who goes walking in his garden with a stick, sends his friends to live in the bellies of whales, gives up the ghost with a groan and then comes back to life three days later! Those things aren't only absurd in and of themselves, Madame -- they're completely opposed to all physical laws!

More from Gustave Flaubert

  1. So from now on the days were going to continue one after the other like this, always the same, innumerable, bringing nothing! . . . It was …
  2. 'What's more delightful than an evening beside the fire with a nice bright lamp and a book, listening to the wind beating against the windo…
  3. Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the s…
  4. Noble characters and pure affections and happy scenes are very comforting things. They're a refuge from life's disillusionments.
  5. Though she had no one to write to, she had bought herself a blotter, a writing case, a pen and envelopes; she would dust off her whatnot, l…
  6. In the tragedy in question, for example, he condemned the ideas but admired the style, abhorred the conception but praised all the details,…
  7. Everything immediately surrounding her -- boring countryside, inane petty bourgeois, the mediocrity of daily life -- seemed to her the exce…
  8. Had they nothing more to say to each other? Their eyes, certainly, were full of more meaningful talk; and as they made themselves utter ban…

All Gustave Flaubert quotes