Gustave Flaubert

"Every book we read plants a seed in our soul."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge, but knowledge gives imagination direction."

"The most important thing is the work itself."

"To criticize is to understand; to understand is to forgive."

"We are dying all the time, yet we pretend we are immortal."

"The universe has no center but every point is its center."

"Patience is the virtue of the weak; impatience the vice of the strong."

"To feel deeply is to suffer greatly."

"Politics is a form of warfare carried on by other means."

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."

"One can live for three weeks without food, three days without water, but only three minutes without hope."

"Marriage is a commercial institution."

"The greatest genius is the greatest madness."

"We should enter death like we enter life—with hope and dignity."

"Knowledge without application is merely theory."

"The mind is like a stomach—it's not how much you put in but how much it digests."

"To accept life fully is to accept both its joy and its sorrow."

"Every human being is a door to infinity."

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

"Friendship is the hardest thing to explain."

"Art requires sacrifice from its servants."

"The body is temporary, the work is eternal."

"To love is to submit to the unknown."

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates life."

"Beauty fades, but grace endures."

"In solitude we find ourselves; in society we lose ourselves."

"The cure for ennui is action."

"Every masterpiece was once considered impossible."

"Truth is stranger than fiction because it has not been prepared."

"To change one's mind is to become twice as wise."