Quote by Gustave Flaubert: “Nothing is more humiliating than to see fools succeed in enterprises that we have failed in.”

This expresses the bitter sting of envy and self-doubt when one witnesses less capable people achieve what they themselves could not. It's a common human frustration with perceived injustice in the world.

Reflects the themes of thwarted ambition and disillusionment prevalent in *Sentimental Education*, where characters often struggle with their own perceived failures and others' undeserved successes in a rapidly changing French society.

French novelist considered one of the greatest prose stylists in literary history. His 1857 novel Madame Bovary, depicting a provincial doctor's wife destroyed by romantic illusions, was both a scandal and a masterpiece that helped define the realist novel.