Gustave Flaubert · Translated by Jacques Barzun

The Dictionary of

Received Ideas

Le Dictionnaire des Idées Reçues

945 entries · A through Y

Posthumous Edition

Featured Entry

Railways

"If Napoleon had had them, he would have been invincible. Talk about them ecstatically, saying: "I, my dear sir, who am speaking to you now—this morning I was at X; I had taken the X train, I transacted my business there, and by X o'clock I was back here.""

FIG. 1 — A SCENE AT THE GARE, CIRCA 1860

Railway Stations

"Gape with admiration; cite them as architectural wonders."

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT (1821–1880)

On This Dictionary

Throughout his life Flaubert made it a game to eavesdrop for the cliché, the platitude, the borrowed and unquestioned idea with which the "right thinking" bourgeois could be counted on to fill any silence. This dictionary is his revenge.

"To dissect," he wrote to George Sand, "is a form of revenge." The result is a compendium of received wisdom so perfectly deadpan that the reader is never quite sure whether to laugh or wince.

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Notable Entries

A selection of the Dictionary's most celebrated definitions

Railways

If Napoleon had had them, he would have been invincible. Talk about them ecstatically, saying: "I, my dear sir, who am speaking to you now—this morning I was at X; I had taken the X train, I transacted my business there, and by X o'clock I was back here."

Absinthe

Extra-violent poison: one glass and you're dead. Newspapermen drink it as they write their copy. Has killed more soldiers than the Bedouin.

Blondes

Hotter than brunettes. (See Brunettes.)

Budget

Never balanced.

Champagne

The sign of a ceremonial dinner. Pretend to despise it, saying: "It's really not a wine." Arouses the enthusiasm of petty folk. Russia drinks more of it than France. Has been the medium for spreading French ideas throughout Europe. During the Regency people did nothing but drink champagne. But technically one doesn't drink it, one "samples" it.

Doctor

Always preceded by "the good." Among men, in familiar conversation, "Oh! balls, doctor!" Is a wizard when he enjoys your confidence, a jackass when you're no longer on terms. All are materialists: "You can't probe for faith with a scalpel."

Erection

Said only of monuments.

God

Voltaire himself admitted it: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

Imagination

Always "lively." Be on guard against it. When lacking in oneself, attack it in others. To write a novel, all you need is imagination.

Machiavelli

Though you have not read him, consider him a scoundrel.

Photography

Will make painting obsolete. (See Daguerreotype.)

Syphilis

Everybody has it, more or less.

Voltaire

Famous for his frightful grin or rictus. His learning superficial.

Wagner

Snicker on hearing his name and joke about the music of the future.

Woman

Member of the sex. One of Adam's ribs. Don't say "the little woman" but "my lady" or still preferable "my better half."

Les Oracles du Salon — 19th century bourgeois caricature

FIG. 2 — LES ORACLES DU SALON, 1868