Human speech is a cracked cauldron on which we knock out tunes for dancing bears, when we wish to conjure pity from the stars.

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.

It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts.

Le bon Dieu est dans le détail .

Madame Bovary, c’est moi.

Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in.

One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.

One must not always think that feeling is everything. Art is nothing without form.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel to our own times.