In regards to Emma receiving too much discipline at the convent as a girl: "She did as tightly reigned horses, she pulled up short and the bit slipped from her mouth." But I think the strength lies in the flow of the context. And I imagine it reads differently in French as it does in English. There aren't really any stand alone quotes that render revalatory epiphanies regarding the human condition, you just have to get inundated in the overall flow and the seemingly unimportant details germinate in your brain. The literature of that period seems to have that quality of little details that grow on you as you mull them over. Fyodor Dostoevksy's "The Brother's Karamazov" is much better in my opinion, it's just that Flaubert had the reputation of ripping up his manuscripts and rewriting the entire thing over and over.