"Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution."

Happiness

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Insight & Reflection

This reflection on happiness by Gustave Flaubert resonates across generations. It highlights a fundamental truth about human nature: our continuous search for meaning in happiness is what ultimately defines our character and our path forward.

About Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert was a French novelist. He has been considered the leading exponent of literary realism in his country and abroad. He is known especially for his debut novel Madame Bovary (1857), his Correspondence, and his scrupulous devotion to his style and aesthetics. The celebrated writer Guy de Maupassant was a protégé of Flaubert.

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Editorial Note: This quote is curated and fact-checked by the Quotes Archive Editorial Team. Verified Literature Specialist.

More by Gustave Flaubert

"There are neither good nor bad subjects. From the point of view of pure Art, you could almost establish it as an axiom that the subject is irrelevant, style itself being an absolute manner of seeing things."

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More about Happiness

"My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so."

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