Anne Louise Germaine de Stael Quotes
Anne Louise Germaine de Stael presents a grand, poetic view of love that bends time.
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Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is an episode in a man's.
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A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.
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Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.
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To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent.
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Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.
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Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.
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The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.
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The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us.
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We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.
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Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notions of time; effaces all memory of begining, all fear of an end.
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Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.
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Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.
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The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.
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Men do not change; they unmask themselves.
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The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.
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“Nothing is less applicable to life than a mathematical argument. A proposition expressed in numbers is definitely false or true. In all other relations, the truth is so mingled with the false that often only instinct can help us to decide among virtuous influences, sometimes equally as strong in one direction as in the other.”
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“Virtue . . . is nearly connected with the heart: I have called it Beneficence; not in the very limited sense that is generally given to the term, but to specify thereby all the actions that emanate from active goodness.”
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“We live in an age when selfinterest alone seems to determine all of man’s acts—and what empathy, what emotion, what enthusiasm can ever grow out of self interest. It is pleasanter to dream of those times of dedication, sacrifice, and heroism that used to be, and that have left honorable traces upon the earth.”
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“Sensibility, imagination, reason, each is subservient to the other. Every one of these faculties would be nothing but a disease, but weakness, instead of strength, if it were not modified or completed by the collective character of our nature.”
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“Enlightening, teaching, and perfecting women together with men on the national and individual level: this must be the secret for the achievement of every reasonable goal, as well as the establishment of any permanent social or political relationships.”
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“When we accustom ourselves to see animals suffer, we in time overcome the natural repugnancy of the sense of anguish, we become less accessible to pity even for our·fellow creatures, or at least we feel no longer those involuntary impressions.”
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“... the reciprocal obligation from man to man holds the first rank; what regards ourselves, ought to be considered relatively to the influence that we may possess over the destiny of others...”
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“The human mind is always making progress, but it is a progress in spirals.”
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“Morality and freedom are as certainly the only bases of the happiness and dignity of the human race as the system of Galileo is the true theory of the celestial motions.”
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“A wellborn soul is guided by only one principle in the world: always do good to others and never harm”