Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, Corinne (1807), Bk. XIV, ch. 1 |
Atheism exists only in coldness, selfishness, and baseness.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlOne must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlIn matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlLife often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, fame, and love.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlSow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlMen do not change; they unmask themselves.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlWhen once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlYou do not reach the sublime by degrees; the distance between it and the merely beautiful is infinite.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlWhen men do wrong, it is out of hardness; when women do wrong, it is out of weakness.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlGenius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlBeauty 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 StaëlLet us then blend everything: love, religion, genius, with sunshine, perfume, music, and poetry.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlA religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlDanger is like wine, it goes to your head.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlOught not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlBe happy, but be so by piety.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlInnocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlThe 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.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlTruth and, by consequence, liberty, will always be the chief power of honest men.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlWhen we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlA religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.
Anne Louise Germaine De StaëlSuperstition 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.
Anne Louise Germaine De Staël