Anne Louise Germaine de Staël quotes - page 2

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)
When men do wrong, it is out of hardness; when women do wrong, it is out of weakness. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Beauty is one in the universe, and, whatever form it assumes, it always arouses a religious feeling in the hearts of mankind. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Frivolity, under whatever form it appears, deprives attention of its power, thought of its originality, and sentiment of its depth. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Men do not change; they unmask themselves. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
The rules are only barriers to keep children from falling. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Atheism exists only in coldness, selfishness, and baseness. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
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)
Let us then blend everything: love, religion, genius, with sunshine, perfume, music, and poetry. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
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. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Religion is nothing, if it is not everything; if existence is not filled with it. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
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. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, fame, and love. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Speech happens to not be his language. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
All that is natural is varied. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
The admiration of the beautiful always has relation to the Divinity. (Anne Louise Germaine de Staël)
The more I see of men the more I like dogs. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation, the source of strength is one's self. When one prays, he goes to a source of strength greater than his own. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes. View quote
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël