Quotes from Sentimental Education

“It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people are difficult to find.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Years passed; and he endured the idleness of his intelligence and the inertia of his heart.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“The hearts of women are like those little pieces of furniture with secret hiding - places, full of drawers fitted into each other; you go to a lot of trouble, break your nails, and in the bottom find some withered flower, a few grains of dust - or emptiness!”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“And the more he was irritated by her basic personality, the more he was drawn to her by a harsh, bestial sensuality, illusions of a moment, which ended in hate.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“There are some men whose only mission among others is to act as intermediaries; one crosses them like bridges and keeps going.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Never had he beheld such a magnificent brown skin, so entrancing a figure, such dainty, transparent fingers. He stood gazing in wonder at her work-basket as if it was something extraordinary. What was her name? Where did she live and what sort of life did she lead? What was her past? He wanted to know what furniture she had in her bedroom, the dresses she wore, the people she knew; even his physical desire for her gave way to a deeper yearning, a boundless, aching curiosity.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“His heart was flooded with immense love, and as he gazed on her he could feel his mind growing numb.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“I'm the sort of man who's doomed to be a failure and I'll go to my grave without ever knowing whether I was real gold or just tinsel!”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Les cœurs des femmes sont comme ces petits meubles à secret, pleins de tiroirs emboîtés les uns dans les autres ; on se donne du mal, on se casse les ongles, et on trouve au fond quelque fleur desséchée, des brins de poussière – ou le vide !”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Pellerin used to read every available book on aesthetics, in the hope of discovering the true theory of Beauty, for he was convinced that once he had found it he would be able to paint masterpieces.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“The hearts of women are like little pieces of furniture wherein things are secreted, full of drawers fitted into each other; one hurts himself, breaks his nails in opening them, and then finds within only some withered flower, a few grains of dust - or emptiness! And then perhaps he felt afraid of learning too much about the matter.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“C'était à Mégara, faubourg de Carthage, dans les jardins d'Hamilcar.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“En plongeant dans la personnalité des autres, il oublia la sienne, ce qui est la seule manière peut-être de n'en pas souffrir.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Besides, she had just reached the autumnal period of womanhood, in which reflection is combined with tenderness, in which the beginning of maturity colours the face with a more intense flame, when strength of feeling mingles with experience of life, and when, having completely expanded, the entire being overflows with a richness in unison with its beauty. Never had she possessed more sweetness, more leniency. Secure in the thought that she would not err, she abandoned herself to a sentiment which seemed to her justified by her sorrows. And, moreover, it was so innocent and fresh! What an abyss lay between the coarseness of Arnoux and the adoration of Frederick!”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Cheer up,' said the captain's son. 'Life is long, and we are young.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“As there was no rational foundation for Frederick’s complaints, and as he could not give evidence of any real misfortune, Martinon was unable to understand his lamentations about existence. As for him, he went every morning to the school, after that took a walk in the Luxembourg, in the evening swallowed his half-cup of coffee; and with fifteen hundred francs a year, and the love of this work-woman, he felt perfectly happy.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Standing side by side, on some rising ground, they felt, as they drank in the air, the pride of a life more free penetrating into the depths of their souls, with a superabundance of energy, a joy which they could not explain.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“L'action, pour certains hommes, est d'autant plus impraticable que le désir est plus fort. La méfiance d'eux-mêmes les embarrasse, la crainte de déplaire les épouvante; d’ailleurs, les affections profondes ressemblent aux honnêtes femmes; elles ont peur d’être découvertes, et passent dans la vie les yeux baissés.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Il voulait qu'elle se donnât, et non la prendre.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Des doutes succédaient à leurs emportements d'espoir. Après des crises de gaieté verbeuse, ils tombaient dans des silences profonds.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Deslauriers, qui couchait dans le cabinet au bois, près de la fontaine, poussait un long bâillement. Frédéric s'asseyait au pied de son lit. D'abord il parlait du dîner, puis il racontait mille détails insignifiants, où il voyait des marques de mépris ou d'affection. Une fois, par exemple, elle avait refusé son bras, pour prendre celui de Dittmer, et Frédéric se désolait.
- Ah ! quelle bêtise!
Ou bien elle l'avait appelé son "ami".
- Vas-y gaiement, alors!
- Mais je n'ose pas, disait Frédéric.
- Eh bien, n'y pense plus. Bonsoir.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Anyway, what was the use? Women's hearts were like those desks full of secret drawers that fit one inside another; you struggle with them, you break your fingernails, and at the bottom you find a withered flower, a little dust, or nothing at all!”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“I zamišljali su život predan jedino ljubavi, dosta plodan da ispuni najopsežnije samoće, prevrši sve radosti, odoli svim nevoljama, u kojem bi ure minule u neprestanom prelijevanju njihovih duša; život, koji bi stvorio nešto sjajno i uzvišeno kao što je titranje zvijezda.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“  Frédéric n'aima point cette manière de s'associer, tout de suite, à sa fortune. Son ami témoignait trop de joie pour eux deux, et pas assez pour lui seul.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Laissez-moi tranquille avec votre hideuse réalité ! Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire, la réalité ? Les uns voient noir, d'autres bleu, la multitude voit bête. Rien de moins naturel que Michel-Ange, rien de plus fort ! Le souci de la vérité extérieure dénote la bassesse contemporaine ; et l'art deviendra, si l'on continue, je ne sais quelle rocambole au-dessous de la religion comme poésie, et de la politique comme intérêt. Vous n'arriverez pas à son but, - oui, son but ! -”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Les Grecs alignèrent sur des rangs parallèles leurs tentes de peaux; les Ibériens disposèrent en cercle leurs pavillons de toile; les Gaulois se firent des baraques de planches; les Libyens des cabanes de pierres sèches, et les Nègres creusèrent dans le sable avec leurs ongles des fosses pour dormir. Beaucoup, ne sachant où se mettre, erraient au milieu des bagages [...]”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Se lăuda că își cunoaște limba și purica cele mai frumoase fraze cu acea severitate haină, acel gust academic care caracterizează persoanele zvăpăiate cînd se ocupă de arta serioasă./
Il se vantait de savoir sa langue et épluchait les phrases les plus belles avec cette sévérité hargneuse, ce goût académique qui distinguent les personnes d’humeur folâtre quand elles abordent l’art sérieux. (©BeQ)”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“Frédéric se așteptase să fie zguduit de bucurie; dar sentimentele slăbesc cînd le schimbi locul și, nemaigăsind-o pe doamna Arnoux în mediul în care o cunoscuse, îi părea că pierduse ceva, că purta în ea, nelămurit, un fel de degradare, că, în sfîrșit, nu mai era aceeași. Liniștea inimii lui îl uluia./
Frédéric s’était attendu à des spasmes de joie; mais les passions s’étiolent quand on les dépayse, et, ne retrouvant plus Mme Arnoux dans le milieu où il l’avait connue, elle lui semblait avoir perdu quelque chose, porter confusément comme une dégradation, enfin n’être pas la même. Le calme de son coeur le stupéfiait. (©BeQ)”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

“... camaraderia lor era o piedică pentru manifestarea oricărei emoții serioase./
... leur camaraderie faisait obstacle à l’épanchement de toute émotion sérieuse. (©BeQ)”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Sentimental Education

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Popular quotes

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“I'm wearing clothes in my thoughts and dreams though. What am I wearing in yours?" she asked.

"Me."

Conversation between Mary Rose and Harrison in Julie Garwood's FOR THE ROSES”
― Julie Garwood, quote from For the Roses

“I once heard a story about Tom Watson, the founder of IBM. Asked to what he attributed the phenomenal success of IBM, he is said to have answered: IBM is what it is today for three special reasons. The first reason is that, at the very beginning, I had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was finally done. You might say I had a model in my mind of what it would look like when the dream—my vision—was in place. The second reason was that once I had that picture, I then asked myself how a company which looked like that would have to act. I then created a picture of how IBM would act when it was finally done. The third reason IBM has been so successful was that once I had a picture of how IBM would look when the dream was in place and how such a company would have to act, I then realized that, unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there. In other words, I realized that for IBM to become a great company it would have to act like a great company long before it ever became one. From the very outset, IBM was fashioned after the template of my vision. And each and every day we attempted to model the company after that template. At the end of each day, we asked ourselves how well we did, discovered the disparity between where we were and where we had committed ourselves to be, and, at the start of the following day, set out to make up for the difference. Every day at IBM was a day devoted to business development, not doing business. We didn’t do business at IBM, we built one Now,”
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“We are about to study the idea of a computational process. Computational processes are abstract beings that inhabit computers. As they evolve, processes manipulate other abstract things called data. The evolution of a process is directed by a pattern of rules called a program. People create programs to direct processes. In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells.

A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from symbolic expressions in arcane and esoteric programming languages that prescribe the tasks we want our processes to perform.

A computational process, in a correctly working computer, executes programs precisely and accurately. Thus, like the sorcerer's apprentice, novice programmers must learn to understand and to anticipate the consequences of their conjuring. Even small errors (usually called bugs or glitches) in programs can have complex and unanticipated consequences.”
― Harold Abelson, quote from Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)

“they rode back she pressed against him, her face on his shoulder, her hands burning his chest like a branding iron.”
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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.