"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."

Gustave Flaubert Literature See all quotes by Gustave Flaubert →

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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)”

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