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.

La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fele ou nous battons des melodies a faire danser les ours, quand on vondrait attendrir les etoiles.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

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More information about this quote

Topic

Limits of language Language

Author

Gustave Flaubert

Source

Madame Bovary

Medium

Novel

Language

French

Time

1856 1850s 19th century

Occupation

Novelist Writer

From

France Europe

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. 2, ch. 12.

Illustrated Quote

A quote by Gustave Flaubert about limits of language: “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms…”
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A quote by Gustave Flaubert about limits of language: “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms…”
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A quote by Gustave Flaubert about limits of language: “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms…”
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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

See many skies and seas.

Gustave Flaubert

More information about this quote
Topic
Broadening one's horizons Travel

Author

Gustave Flaubert
Source
Letters of Gustave Flaubert
Medium
Letter
Statement Type
Advice
Language
French
Time
1857 1850s 19th century
Authentication Score 1
Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Letter to Mademoiselle Leroyer de Chantepie. c. 1840.

Another quote from the 1850s

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

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More information about this quote
Topic
Simple living Introspection Life lessons Purpose of life

Author

Henry David Thoreau
Source
Where I Lived, And What I Lived For Walden
Genre
Autobiography and memoir
Language
English
Time
1854 1850s 19th century
Authentication Score 3
Original Citation

Thoreau, Henry David. "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For." Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.

Current Citation

Thoreau, Henry David. "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For." Walden and Civil Disobedience. Signet, 2012.

Another quote originally in French

I bend but do not break.

Jean de la Fontaine

Read The Fables of La Fontaine at Project Gutenberg
More information about this quote
Topic
Resilience

Author

Jean de la Fontaine
Source
The Oak and the Reed Fables (de la Fontaine)
Medium
Fable and fairytale
Language
French
Time
1668 1660s 17th century
Authentication Score 2
Original Citation

La Fontaine, Jean. "Le chene et le roseau [The Oak and the Reed]." Fables. Paris, 1668, bk. 1, no. 22.

Current Citation

La Fontaine, Jean. "The Oak and the Reed." The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine, translated by Norman R. Shapiro. University of Illinois Press, 2007, bk. 1, no. 22.