The more humanity advances, the more it is degraded.

The line expresses a characteristically Flaubertian skepticism about “progress.” Read literally, it suggests that as societies become more technologically capable or materially “advanced,” they may simultaneously lose dignity, moral seriousness, or aesthetic refinement—becoming coarser, more complacent, or more hypocritical. The paradox (“advances” yet “degraded”) aligns with Flaubert’s recurring critique of bourgeois self-satisfaction and the empty rhetoric of improvement. It can also be taken as an indictment of modernity’s tendency to substitute comfort, efficiency, and opinion for wisdom, compassion, or truth. In this sense, the quote is less a rejection of change than a warning that progress without ethical or intellectual depth can amount to cultural decline.