“Exuberance is better than taste”

— Gustave Flaubert, book Sentimental Education

Pt. 1, Ch. 4; the most famous portion of this statement is "Exuberance is better than taste…" [Mieux vaut l'exubérance que le goût.]
Sentimental Education (1869)
Context: Without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most effective monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a streetpavement, and a savage is surely better than a hairdresser!

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Exuberance is better than taste" by Gustave Flaubert?

Gustave Flaubert photo

Gustave Flaubert98

French writer (1821–1880) 1821–1880

Related quotes

“Without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most effective monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a streetpavement, and a savage is surely better than a hairdresser!”

Gustave Flaubert book Sentimental Education

Source: Sentimental Education (1869), Pt. 1, Ch. 4; the most famous portion of this statement is "Exuberance is better than taste..." [Mieux vaut l'exubérance que le goût.]

“Bacon tastes better than skinny feels.”

Morgan Murphy (food critic) (1972) Southern writer

Source: <i>Bourbon & Bacon</i> (2014), p. 161

“A good general rule is to state that the bouquet is better than the taste, and vice versa.”

Stephen Potter (1900–1969) British writer

One-Upmanship (1952) ch. 14
On wine-tasting.

“There's nothing that tastes of death more than the summer sun, the powerful light, exuberant nature. You sniff the air and listen to the woods and know that the plants and animals don't give a damn about you. Everything lives and consumes itself. Nature is death…”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

Source: The devil in the hills (1949), Chapter 7, p. 311

“You are rich if and only if money you refuse tastes better than money you accept.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 27

“Most writers have no other quality than the reader: taste. But the latter has the better taste, because he does not write - and the best if he does not read.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

“The strenuous life tastes better”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

“There is no species of poetry which is better adapted to the taste of a melancholy man than a sonnet. Its brevity precludes the possibility of it becoming tiresome.”

Henry Kirke White (1785–1806) English poet

Melancholy hours, The Poetical Works and remains of Henry Kirke White, G. Routledge, London 1835.
Melancholy Hours

“It's funny how cucumber water can taste so much better than pickle juice, even though they come from the same source.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

“I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren't in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

Related topics

Taste