Before her marriage she had thought that she had love within her grasp; but since the happiness which she had expected this love to bring her hadn’t come, she supposed she must have been mistaken. And Emma tried to imagine just what was meant, in life, by the words “bliss,” “passion,” and “rapture” - words that had seemed so beautiful to her in books.
Gustave Flaubert
Related She had words in her heart which she released thru her fingertips. EVELI ACOSTA My mother started out by being a very good girl. She did everything that was expected of her, and it... RUTH REICHL But Lucy had been alone too much of her life, and in her loneliness she had constructed a vision of ... ANN PATCHETT Sissy had two great failings. She was a great lover and a great mother. She had so much of tendernes... BETTY SMITH She left feeling dirty, and on the bus ride home she knew that what her uncles told her had come tru... DAVID BERGEN Her thoughts ran away to her girlhood with its passionate longing for adventure and she remembered t... SHERWOOD ANDERSON He was supposed to be the first man to tell her that she was beautiful and help her determine who sh... ANAIS TORRES Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him, but she did... LEO TOLSTOY She could feel the blood flowing within her and she felt that she must die or break forth into leave... MERVYN PEAKE She gave her a reason to write her own words, to see that words had also brought her to life. ... MARKUS ZUSAK I'm very proud of my love for Whitney Houston. She really changed my life. She made my life a be... NARADA MICHAEL WALDEN She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him -- didn'... PHILIP PULLMAN She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, ... KEN FOLLETT The latter part of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest period in Princess Marya's life. Her l... LEO TOLSTOY The love she felt was so hard that she had to squeeze him to her until her arms were tired. CARSON MCCULLERS But this was that view of human destiny which she had most passionately hated and rejected: the view... AYN RAND Sharp knives seemed to cut her delicate feet, yet she hardly felt them, so deep was the pain in her ... HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN She was nine when she came in, and we had her several months. Her home life was not the best. She wa... BRENDA WEBB Love...who needed love? As long as she had her books and her friends and an occasional hookup, she w... LAUREN CONRAD She was in fear for her life, ... She had been told many times if she left him, harm would come to (... CHIEF JOSEPH …always felt the pain of her friends so keenly that she could not speak easy, fluent words of comf... L.M. MONTGOMERY Was it all in my head? A Lunar trick?” Her stomach twisted. “No.” She shook her head, fer... MARISSA MEYER She had a very difficult life. Her mother gave her away when she was little, and the man who took he... BERNARDO BATIZ When it was over, she gathered him in her arms. And told him the terrible irony of her life. Th... MELINA MARCHETTA Acceptance made her realize that she had it in her to boldly and gracefully handle her own life. She... LATIKA TEOTIA Yet it seemed to Bega that if she could continue to read, which had come so easily to her... then th... MELVYNN BRAGG It did no good to cry, she had learned that early on. She had also learned that every time she tried... STIEG LARSSON She’d been feeling pleased with a couple of moves, had thought she was gaining the upper hand. But... EMILY ARDEN I'm so proud of you," she said, and she supposed she was, or she would have been if her sister hadn'... MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON As her feet beat the concrete ground beneath them, her chest began to ache. It had been a long time ... ROSS CALIGIURI And reading this way - with no deadline, no agenda - she remembered why she loved literature so much... EMILY MAGUIRE He is so beautiful," she thought, aching from the sadness that she saw in his eyes. In the late-afte... SHIRA ANTHONY Those who had seen eyes like hers before understood instantly that she was a woman who had suffered,... DANIELLE STEEL The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She... HAN KANG He was demanding. He always would be. But sometimes, he was so vulnerable and she realized she had p... CHRISTINE FEEHAN She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, ... MICHAEL ONDAATJE ...she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to h... EVELYN WAUGH She came here to change her life, to get her daughter back -- that was what was real and pure in her... ANDREW LLOYD She looked like she had been beaten up, bruised. She had bruises all over her face, her tongue had b... BERNADETTE MCELROY For a long time that had seemed to her to be the key to life: Life--real life--was just a solitude w... KEVIN BROCKMEIER Then she sat as if paralyzed, thinking. She had never in her life felt such a longing. She wanted Mi... STIEG LARSSON As she had been walking from the ward to that room, she had felt such pure hatred that now she had n... PAULO COELHO Lucy seemed to be imprisoned by a legion of people in her life who always wanted what was right for ... C. JOYBELL C. She had not thought it would be so easy to slip into the old roles. Cambridge had changed her fundam... IAN MCEWAN She had been beaten unconscious. She was covered in blood. She had this cord wrapped around her neck... GRAHAM THORPE What made more sense was that the bargain she was bound to was to go on living as she had been doing... ALICE MUNRO She hated that will had this effect on her. Hated it. She knew better. She knew what he thought of h... CASSANDRA CLARE Midland City had a goddess of discord all its own. This was a goddess who could not dance, would not... KURT VONNEGUT Why had peace given place so soon to turmoil? To two separate solitudes? Because peace had been with... MARY BALOGH She was in fear for her life, ... She had been told many times by Rafael that if she left him that h... CHIEF JOSEPH And the child, Francie Nolan, was of all the Rommelys and all the Nolans. She had the violent weakne... BETTY SMITH (She) tells him that she loves him, tells him that she wants to be with him again sexually, so she d... BARBARA MATTHEWS She wasn’t afraid of difficulties; what frightened her was being forced to choose one particular p... PAULO COELHO Will, the boy who loved the same books she did, the same poetry she did, who made her laugh even whe... CASSANDRA CLARE Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary wa... ELIZABETH WEIN I remember quite distinctly her coming to me quite agitated, emotionally distressed, and at that poi... JOHN ROTHER Never in her life – she could swear it from the bottom of her soul – had she ever intended to do... THOMAS HARDY Yet her experience had consisted less in a series of pure disappointments than in a series of substi... THOMAS HARDY She plays with her emotions on her sleeve, she's going to yell every once in a while. But her being ... MARQUETTE BURGESS But Julian's blood was different. When she saw it she thought of him, shot and crumpling, the way hi... CASSANDRA CLARE George stared at the dove. What would she say if she could speak to him? What would she wish for, fo... METTE IVIE HARRISON Royce understood then why she had come: she had come to finish the task her relatives had begun; to ... JUDITH MCNAUGHT First she starved herself of love, which meant also life; then of poetry in deference to what she th... VIRGINIA WOOLF Sophie said to me once that she was glad she had been scarred. She said that whoever loved her now w... CASSANDRA CLARE No matter what, the day didn't feel like Christmas to her. She remembered years ago, when... KAYLA KRANTZ She was about forty: In her youth She had been a Beauty; But her charms had been upon that large sca... MATTHEW LEWIS The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she l... FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdnes... DEAN JACKSON Beautiful.
(in reply to her husband who had asked how she felt moments before her death.). ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING A lengthy and painful discussion followed. It lasted through tea and dinner. It was revealed to Lady... KAGE BAKER Her library would have been valuable to a bibliophile except she treated her books execrably. I woul... PAT CONROY For most of her life she just expected things would work out, that people would be kind. Now she rec... STEWART O'NAN Choosing a path meant having to miss out on others. She had a whole life to live, and she was always... PAULO COELHO Her eyes stung from crying for so long and having some tears dry on them. Her body was weak from the... ROXANNA ALIBA KAZIBWE Now very much against her will, she thought of the way Jace had looked at her then, the blaze of fai... CASSANDRA CLARE She suddenly understood why she had let him kiss her in the diner, why she had wanted him at all. HOLLY BLACK She didn’t understand why it was happening,” he said. “I had to tell her she would die. Her so... JOHN GREEN When had being an addict gotten so fucking hard? So exhausting? It had been so easy for so long; she... STACIA KANE The knowledge that she could learn to love a man had always meant more to her than loving him effort... ORHAN PAMUK She was dressed in white, and her tunic had amazing flared sleeves which trailed on the ground behin... KEN FOLLETT Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, sh... KURT VONNEGUT So much of love her spirit had,She found an ever-flowing springOf happiness in everything. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX But the more Emma recognised her love, the more she crushed it down, that it might not be evident, t... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT But she loved her dad; she was a daddy's girl. She said her father had changed the life insurance an... MALINDA GONZALES Mine eyes
Were not in fault, for she was beautiful;
Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my... WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I called out to her and said to bring Jasmine back and I would hold onto her, ... She said her daugh... MARCELLA ANDERSON So what if she wasn’t a pushover? So what if she had some mettle and didn’t wear her heart on he... SARA SHERIDAN She smiled. She knew she was dying. But it did not matter any longer. She had known something which ... AYN RAND She really said no to nothing. I think Tom Robbins named her. She officially changed her name to Aur... DANA RUST She had been dying so long that I had almost come to regard her as immortal. THOMAS NELSON PAGE I used to write poetry when I was younger," Jess said. She had kept a notebook by her bed, in case s... ALLEGRA GOODMAN Listening to Leonard, Madeleine felt impoverished by her happy childhood. She never wondered why she... JEFFREY EUGENIDES We miss her. She had a happy life ... she was at a point in her life where she was comfortable with ... AMY URIELL His hands tightened on her shoulders as the truth washed over him. My God, she really had told him y... CAROLYN JEWEL She had that goal since her freshman year and she finally did it. BOBBY BATES It's definitely gratifying to her. She had come within a stroke or two the past two years and wanted... TIM LAWSON A man fell in love with Jeanne, and she tried to love him. But she complained that he uttered such o... ANAïS NIN Astrid had gone to look at the burn zone. Doing the right thing. Kids had yelled at her. Demand... MICHAEL GRANT This was all her own idea. She woke up Saturday morning and she had had lemonade stands before. ... ... CHRISTINE KING She let her head fall back upon Marius' knees and her eyelids closed. He thought that poor soul had ... VICTOR HUGO
More Gustave Flaubert
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GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Charles's conversation was as flat as a sidewalk, and everyone's ideas filed along it in their ordin... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT When she had thus for a while struck the flint on her heart without getting a spark, incapable, more... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Do not read as children do to enjoy themselves, or, as the ambitious do to educate themselves. No, r... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT What baffled him was that there should be all this fuss about something so simple as love. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though ... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT One mustn GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we... 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GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I believe that if one always looked at the skies, one would end up with wings. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT By trying to understand everything, everything makes me dream GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Better to work for yourself alone. You do as you like and follow your own ideas, you admire yourself... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the b... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Stupidity is something unshakable; nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it; it is of t... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT One mustn't look at the abyss, because there is at the bottom an inexpressible charm which attra... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The public wants work which flatters its illusions. 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GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Is it not time to cry that the blind shall see, the deaf hear, the lame walk? But that which fanatic... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT (Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT To be simple is no small matter. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Sentences must stir in a book like leaves in a forest, each distinct from each despite their resembl... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Writing is a dog’s life, but the only one worth living. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT It’s hard to communicate anything exactly and that’s why perfect relationships between people ar... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Había un no sé qué de vertiginoso que Emma sentía llegar hasta sí, como una emanación de aquel... FLAUBERT GUSTAVE Before a Parisienne in lace, in the salon of some illustrious physician, a person of importance with... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Well," he said, "don't you know that there are souls forever in torment? They must have alternate dr... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I p... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT What wretched poverty of language! To compare stars to diamonds! GUSTAVE FLAUBERT It is an excellent habit to look at things as so many symbols. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Abstraction can provide stumbling blocks for people of strange intelligence. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I believe in the Supreme Being, in a Creator, whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us he... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast; and his heart, like the people who c... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT [T]he truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none ... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Doesn't it seem to you," asked Madame Bovary, "that the mind moves more freely in the presence of th... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT After the pain of this disappointment her heart once more stood empty, and the succession of identic... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT And she felt as though she had been there, on that bench, for an eternity. For an infinity of passio... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ou... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT She loved the sea for its storms alone, cared for vegetation only when it grew here and there among ... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT She was the amoureuse of all the novels, the heroine of all the plays, the vague “she” of all th... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Haven't you ever happened to come across in a book some vague notion that you've had, some obscure i... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The denigration of those we love always detaches us from them in some degree. Never touch your idols... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT She would have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corri... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT She was not happy--she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life--this instantaneous tu... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she c... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she ke... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skie... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem seem t... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT What better occupation, really, than to spend the evening at the fireside with a book, with the wind... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailo... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT He had carefully avoided her out of the natural cowardice that characterizes the stronger sex. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT What an elder sees sitting; the young can't see standing. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I go from exasperation to a state of collapse, then I recover and go from prostration to Fury, so th... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT A los ídolos es mejor no tocarlos porque algo de la pintura dorada que los recubría se nos queda s... FLAUBERT GUSTAVE Caught up in life, you see it badly. You suffer from it or enjoy it too much. The artist, in my opin... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The melancholy of the antique world seems to me more profound than that of the moderns, all of whom ... FLAUBERT GUSTAVE She was as sated with him as he was tired of her. Emma had rediscovered in adultery all the banality... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT He had the vanity to believe men did not like him – while men simply did not know him. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT How badly arranged the world is. What is the purpose of ugliness, suffering, sadness? Why our powerl... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT In the dark room a cloud of yellow dust flew from beneath the tool like a scatter of sparks from und... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the b... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I detest my fellow-beings and do not feel that I am their fellow at all GUSTAVE FLAUBERT She (Madame Bovary) had that indefinable beauty that comes from happiness, enthusiasm, success - a b... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT You don’t make art out of good intentions. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest c... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Then they wondered if there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhab... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Sadness is a vice. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s poss... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The sight of so many ruins destroys any desire to build shanties; all this ancient dust makes one in... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT He loved the extensive vaults where you could hear the night birds and the sea breeze; he loved the ... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Success is a consequence and must not be a goal. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I am a man-pen. I feel through the pen, because of the pen. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Of all the icy blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling and havoc wreaking GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The true poet for me is a priest. As soon as he dons the cassock, he must leave his family. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Art, like the Jewish God, wallows in sacrifices. So tear yourself to pieces, mortify your flesh, rol... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT My soul has been haunted by something like those forgotten melodies that come back to us at twilight... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she w... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT When we entered a classroom we always tossed our caps on the floor, to free our hands; as soon as we... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Da bambino amavo ciò che si vede, da adolescente quello che si sente: da uomo, non amo più nulla.<... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT So when will this society, bastardised by every debauchery of mind, body and soul, finally come... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Open them, weak yet proud man, pitiful ant that struggles to crawl over its speck of dust! You ... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Everyone rushes wherever his instincts impel him, the populace swarms like insects over a corpse, po... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT This haze of blood must subside, the palace must collapse under the weight of the riches it conceals... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT If there is on earth, and among all these things of nothing, a belief worthy of adoration, if there ... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT But for the man who watches the leaves trembling in the wind’s breath, the rivers meandering throu... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT One never tires of what is well written, style is life! It is the very blood of thought! GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Charles went to kiss her shoulder. -Leave me alone! she said, you're creasing my dress. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT – Assim, nós – dizia ele –, por que nós nos conhecemos? Que acaso o quis? É que através da... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT The idea of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror. I would curse myself if I were a f... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT ...and since, human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears ... FLAUBERT GUSTAVE How oft the warmth of the sun above Makes a pretty young girl dream of love. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Irony takes nothing away from pathos. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT But the more Emma recognised her love, the more she crushed it down, that it might not be evident, t... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Thought is the greatest of pleasures —pleasure itself is only imagination—have you ever enjoyed ... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Oh, if somewhere there were a being strong and handsome, a valiant heart, passionate and sensitive a... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Never have things of the spirit counted for so little. Never has hatred for everything great been so... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT But how nothingness invades us! We are scarcely born ere decay begins for us, in such a way that the... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT There was an air of indifference about them, a calm produced by the gratification of every passion;... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT At other times, at the edge of a wood, especially at dusk, the trees themselves would assume strange... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I grew up in a hospital and as a child I played in the dissecting room GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like s... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT With my burned hand, I write about the nature of fire. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Love art. Of all lies, it is the least untrue. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT As humanity perfects itself, man becomes degraded. When everything is reduced to the mere counter-ba... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I don't believe that happiness is possible, but I think tranquility is. GUSTAVE FLAUBERT I'm no more modern than ancient, no more French than Chinese, and the idea of a native country, that... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT We must laugh and cry, enjoy and suffer, in a word, vibrate to our full capacity … I think that’... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT ..She still was not happy, she never had been. What caused this inadequacy in her life? Why did ever... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT ... sentimentele slăbesc cînd le schimbi locul .../ Frédéric s’était attendu à des spa... GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Print: to see one's name in print! - Some people commit a crime for no other reason GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. FLAUBERT Nothing is more humiliating than to see idiots succeed in enterprises we have failed in. FLAUBERT Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this. GUSTAV FLAUBERT Read the sacred writings of all the peoples on Earth. Through all of them runs, like a red thread, t... GUSTAVE MEYRINK I am dominated by one thing, an irresistible, burning attraction towards the abstract. GUSTAVE MOREAU I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense ... GUSTAVE COURBET No one could have less faith in the absolute and definitive importance of the work created by man, b... GUSTAVE MOREAU The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it i... GUSTAVE COURBET Fine art is knowledge made visible. GUSTAVE COURBET Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and exist... GUSTAVE COURBET I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota. GUSTAVE COURBET