Human life is a sad show, undoubtedly: ugly, heavy and complex. Art has no other end, for people of feeling, than to conjure away the burden and bitterness.

Car la vie humaine est une triste boutique, décidément. – Une chose laide, lourde & compliquée. L'art n'a point d'autre but, pr les gens d'esprit, que d'en escamotter le fardeau & l'amertume.

Gustave Flaubert

More information about this quote

Topic

Purpose of art Art Life The human condition

Author

Gustave Flaubert

Source

Letters of Gustave Flaubert

Medium

Letter

Language

French

Time

1864 1860s 19th century

Occupation

Novelist Writer

From

France Europe

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Letter to Amelie Bosquet. July 1864.

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Related Quotes

Below are one or more quotes that share at least one tag with the quote at the top of the page

Another quote by Gustave Flaubert

We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

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More information about this quote
Topic
Idols

Author

Gustave Flaubert
Source
Madame Bovary
Medium
Novel
Language
French
Time
1857 1850s 19th century
Authentication Score 2
Original Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Moeurs de Province [Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners]. Revue de Paris, 1 Oct. 1856 - 15 Dec. 1856. Serial.

Current Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary, edited and translated by Lydia Davis. Penguin Classics, 2011, pt. 3, ch. 6.

Another quote from the 1860s

It is not the prize that can make us happy; it is not even the winning of the prize....[It is] the struggle, the long hot hour of the honest fight.... There is no human bliss equal to twelve hours of work with only six hours in which to do it.

Anthony Trollope

Orley Farm

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More information about this quote
Topic
Benefits of adversity Adversity Hard work

Author

Anthony Trollope
Source
Orley Farm
Medium
Novel
Language
English
Time
1862 1860s 19th century
Authentication Score 3
Citation

Trollope, Anthony. Orley Farm. London: Chapman and Hall, 1861-1862.

Another quote about Life

They lived und laughed ant loved end left.

James Joyce

Finnegans Wake

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More information about this quote
Topic
Looking back Life
Speaker
Jute

Author

James Joyce
Source
Finnegans Wake
Medium
Novel
Genre
Modernist literature
Statement Type
Epitaph
Language
English
Time
1939 1930s 20th century
Authentication Score 3
Original Citation

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Faber and Faber, 1939.

Current Citation

Joyce, James. Finnegans Wake. Wordsworth, 2012.

Another quote from 1864

Taste...Is the only morality...Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you what you are.

John Ruskin

More information about this quote
Topic
Taste
Speaker
John Ruskin
Medium
Lecture
Language
English
Time
1864 1860s 19th century
Authentication Score 3
Original Citation

Ruskin, John. "Traffic." c. 1864, Town Hall, Bradford, England, UK. Lecture.

Current Citation

Ruskin, John. Traffic. Penguin UK, 2015.

Another quote originally in French

Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be; in this direction their unbounded imagination grows and dilates beyond all measure.... Democracy, which shuts the past against the poet, opens the future before him.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America

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More information about this quote
Topic
Democracy

Author

Alexis de Tocqueville
Source
Democracy in America
Genre
Political literature
Language
French
Time
1840 1840s 19th century
Authentication Score 2
Original Citation

Tocqueville, Alexis De. De La Democratie en Amerique [Democracy in America]. Vol. 2, London: Saunders and Otley, 1840, sect. 1, ch. 17.

Current Citation

Tocqueville, Alexis De. Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II, translated by Henry Reeve. Bantam Classics, 2000, vol. 2, sect. 1, ch. 17.