Gustave Flaubert on art

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.

You can calculate the worth of a man by the number of his enemies, and the importance of a work of art by the harm that is spoken of it.

If music be the food of love, play on.

William Shakespeare1564–1616Twelfth Night (1601), Act I, scene i.In context

• Love
• Music

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Robert Frost1874–1963

• Poetry

Music makes one feel so romantic⁠—at least it always gets on one’s nerves⁠—which is the same thing nowadays.

Oscar Wilde1854–1900

• Love
• Music