Quote by Gustave Flaubert

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.

Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idi

Summary

This quote suggests that receiving love and happiness at a young age can lead to ignorance and foolishness later in life. It compares happiness to smallpox, implying that if one experiences it too early, it can have negative long-term effects, much like catching an illness too soon can permanently damage one's health. The idea conveyed is that some experiences and hardships are necessary for personal growth and wisdom, and that early love or happiness can hinder that development.

Topics

Age

By Gustave Flaubert

Liked the quote? Share it with your friends.

Random Quotations

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two C

Perception

What I'm still grappling with and learning how to do is to b

What I'm still grappling with and learning how to do is to be looking and thinking cinematically, having come from television.

Learning

True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grav

True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?

Oppression

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fanaticism

If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel i

If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely.

Authors & Writing

Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for

Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for old age.

Booth Tarkington

Memory

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window.

Computers

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is

I can write all the way through the morning, when my mind is clear, and there are no distractions.

Karen Thompson Walker

Morning

Good. There are many nights as days, and the one is just as

Good. There are many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

Carl Gustav Jung

Sadness

My country wrong or right, is like saying my mother, drunk o

My country wrong or right, is like saying my mother, drunk or sober.

G. K. Chesterton

Patriotism

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of noti

Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too general for its existing language.

Alfred North Whitehead

Ideas

Don't let your will roar when your power only whispers.

Don't let your will roar when your power only whispers.

Power