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Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

42 quotes

• “On cesse de s'aimer si quelqu'un ne nous aime.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1790 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sophie, or The Secret Sentiments (Sophie, ou les sentiments secrets, 1790), Act 2, sc. 8

• “L'amour est l'histoire de la vie des femmes; c'est un épisode dans celle des hommes.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1796 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions (De l'influence des passions, 1796), Sec. 1, ch. 4

• “The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement. Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales, 1800), Pt. 2, ch. 4

• “If we would succeed in works of the imagination, we must offer a mild morality in the midst of rigid manners; but where the manners are corrupt, we must consistently hold up to view an austere morality.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800), Pt. 2, ch. 5

• “One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1800 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Claude Hochet (Summer 1800), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 223

• “Un homme doit savoir braver l'opinion; une femme s'y soumettre.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Delphine (1802), epigraph

• “It seems to me that life's circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Delphine (1802), Preface

• “In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1810 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Juliette Récamier (October 5, 1810), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age (1958), p. 401

• “Superstition attaches to this life, and religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, and religion to virtue; it is from the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious, and it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these same desires that we are religious.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1810 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Ten Years' Exile (Dix années d'exil, written 1810–1813, posthumously published 1821), ch. 16

• “Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, fame, and love.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1813 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Reflections on Suicide (Réflexions sur le suicide, 1813), Sec. 1

• “I must keep on rowing, not until I reach port but until I reach my grave.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1814 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Albertine Necker de Saussure (late 1814), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age (1958), p. 441

• “You [America] are the vanguard of the human race. You are the world’s future.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) first seen 1817 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: To George Ticknor (1817), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age (1958), p. 459

• “Madame de Staël thought it was pride in mankind to endeavour to penetrate the secret of the universe; and speaking of the higher metaphysics she said: "I prefer the Lord's Prayer to it all.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in Albertine-Adrienne Necker de Saussure, Sketch of the Life, Character, and Writings of Baroness de Staël-Holstein (1820), p. 349; often misquoted as, "I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity tha…

• “Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in J. D. Finod (ed.) A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1880), p. 138

• “Men do not change; they unmask themselves.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in Victor Gold, Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP (2008)

• “Genius has no sex!”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age (1958), p. 176

• “Frivolity, under whatever form it appears, deprives attention of its power, thought of its originality, and sentiment of its depth.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Tout ce qui est naturel est varié.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “You do not reach the sublime by degrees; the distance between it and the merely beautiful is infinite.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée, qui vous attend pour vous faire du bien quand vous vous en approchez.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When men do wrong, it is out of hardness; when women do wrong, it is out of weakness.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end: we fancy that we have always possessed what we love, so difficult is it to imagine how we could have lived without it.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Bk. 8, ch. 2, as translated by Isabel Hill (1833)

• “Beauty is one in the universe, and, whatever form it assumes, it always arouses a religious feeling in the hearts of mankind.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Let us then blend everything: love, religion, genius, with sunshine, perfume, music, and poetry.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Atheism exists only in coldness, selfishness, and baseness.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Danger is like wine, it goes to your head.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “O Earth! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Bk. 13, ch. 4, as translated by Letitia Elizabeth Landon for Isabel Hill (1833)

• “Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Be happy, but be so by piety.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is perhaps too much freedom in Protestantism to satisfy a certain religious austerity, which may seize upon the man who is overwhelmed by great misfortunes; sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we saw there would appear insane.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “L'esprit consiste à connaître la ressemblance des choses diverses et la différence des choses semblables.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “La voix de la conscience est si délicate, qu'il est facile d'étouffer; mais elle est si pure, qu'il est impossible de la méconnaître.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “La religion n'est rien si elle n'est pas tout, si l'existence n'en est pas remplie.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “L'admiration pour le beau se rapporte toujours à la Divinité.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “La recherche de la vérité est la plus noble des occupations, et sa publication un devoir.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Ces règles ne sont que des barrières pour empêcher les enfants de tomber.”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Le sens de ce mot, chez les Grecs, en est la plus noble définition: l'enthousiasme signifie Dieu en nous .”

  Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source