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Anne Louise Germaine de Staël Quotes
1766–1817 France
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (April 22, 1766 – July 14, 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French-speaking Swiss author living in Paris and abroad, who determined literary tastes of Europe at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
France Novelists Philosophers Also known as: De Staël, Anne Louise Germaine, Germaine de Staël, Madame De Stael, Madame De Staël, Madame de Stael, Madame de Staël
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61 quotes
Men do not change; they unmask themselves.
You [America] are the vanguard of the human race. You are the world’s future.
To George Ticknor (1817)
All that is natural is varied.
Corinne (1807)
Misfortune had conquered her, how true it is, that sooner or later the most rebellious must bow beneath the same yoke.
Corinne (1807)
In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.
One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.
Be happy, but be happy through piety.
Corinne (1807)
Madame de Staël thought it was pride in man to endevour to penetrate the secret of the universe; and speaking of the higher metaphysics she said: "I prefer the Lord's Prayer to it all."
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."
I must keep on rowing, not until I reach port but until I reach my grave.
Be happy, but be so by piety.
Corinne (1807)
The soul is a fire that darts its rays through all the senses; it is in this fire that existence consists; all the observations and all the efforts of philosophers ought to turn towards this ME, the centre and moving power of our sentiments and our ideas.
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.
De l'Allemagne (1813)
Superstition is related to this life, religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, religion to virtue; it is by the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious; it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these desires that we become religious.
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.
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.
The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800)
Strangers are contemporary posterity.
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.
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.
Delphine (1802)
The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.
Misattributed
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