"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! May my entire flesh perish and may I transmit to no one the aggravations and the disgrace of existence."

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More by Gustave Flaubert

“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. (14 June 1853)”

“My deplorable mania for analysis exhausts me. I doubt everything, even my doubt.”

“Tout le monde, par excès de terreur, devenait brave.”

“C'était à Mégara, faubourg de Carthage, dans les jardins d'Hamilcar.”

“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. (18 March 1857)”

“Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry. (14 August 1853)”

Resonant Thoughts

"If, being duke and peer, you would not be contented with my standing uncovered before you, but should also wish that I should esteem you, I should ask you to show me the qualities that merit my esteem…"

— Blaise Pascal

Mathematics1623–1662

#justice

"I think faith in each other is much harder than faith in God or faith in crystals. I very rarely have faith in God; I occasionally have little spasms of it, but they go away, if I think hard enough ab…"

— Stephen Fry

Entertainment1957

#Human Nature

"Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of th…"

— Mikhail Bakunin

Philosophy1764–1837

#truth

"After the wars and the killings had ended, when usually there survived only some boys, some women, and children, these survivors were distributed among the Christians to be slaves."

— Bartolomé de las Casas

1474–1566

#family