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.
— Gustave Flaubert
All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
What an elder sees sitting; the young can't see standing.
Read much, but not many books.
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.
There is no truth. There is only perception.
The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.
Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.
Read in order to live.
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded.
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.
Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.
The deplorable mania of doubt exhausts me. I doubt about everything, even my doubts.
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use.
The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough.
Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
