“When men do wrong, it is out of hardness; when women do wrong, it is out of weakness.”
Bk. 6, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)
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Anne Louise Germaine de Staël:
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Famous Anne Louise Germaine de Staël Quotes
Bk. 8, ch. 2, as translated by Isabel Hill (1833)
Variant translation: It is certainly through love that eternity can be understood; it confuses all thoughts about time; it destroys the ideas of beginning and end; one thinks one has always been in love with the person one loves, so difficult is it to conceive that one could live without him.
As translated by Sylvia Raphael (1998)
Corinne (1807)
Bk. 4, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)
“Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, fame, and love.”
Reflections on Suicide (Réflexions sur le suicide, 1813), Section 1
The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800), Pt. 2, ch. 5
“The rules are only barriers to keep children from falling.”
Ces règles ne sont que des barrières pour empêcher les enfants de tomber.
Pt. 4, ch. 9
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël Quotes about life
Delphine (1802), Preface
“One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.”
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
Herold comments: "Her decision was emphatically in favor of suffering, which after all was a pleasure compared to boredom." (p. 224)
The actual quotation is from a letter from Mme de Staël to Claude Hochet dated October 1, 1800 : «Il faut choisir dans la vie entre l’ennui et le tourment : je donne l’un et l’hiver l’autre» (Germaine de Staël, Correspondance générale. Tome IV. Première partie. Du directoire au Consulat. 1er décembre 1796-15 décembre 1800, texte établi et présenté par Béatrice W. Jasinski, Paris, Chez Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1976, xii/337 p., p. 326).
“Love is the whole history of a woman's life; it is an episode in a man's.”
L'amour est l'histoire de la vie des femmes; c'est un épisode dans celle des hommes.
A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions (De l'influence des passions, 1796), Section 1, ch. 4
Ten Years' Exile (Dix années d'exil, written 1810–1813, posthumously published 1821), ch. 16
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël Quotes
“Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.”
The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les istitutions sociales, 1800) , Pt. 2, ch. 4
Context: 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.
The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les istitutions sociales, 1800) , Pt. 2, ch. 4
Context: 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.
“Men do not change; they unmask themselves.”
Quoted in Invasion of the Party Snatchers : How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP (2008) by Victor Gold
“Be happy, but be so by piety.”
Bk. 20, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)
“A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.”
Un homme doit savoir braver l'opinion; une femme s'y soumettre.
Delphine (1802), epigraph
The epigraph is taken from the writings of de Staël's mother, Suzanne Necker.
“The search for the truth is the noblest of occupations, and its publication a duty.”
La recherche de la vérité est la plus noble des occupations, et sa publication un devoir.
Pt. 4, ch. 2
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
Pt. 4, ch. 10
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
“Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.”
Quoted in A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1880) collected and translated by J. D. Finod, p. 138
“When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.”
Bk. 4, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)
“In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.”
Letter to Juliette Récamier (October 5, 1810), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 401
“Atheism exists only in coldness, selfishness, and baseness.”
Bk. 10, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)
“Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.”
Pt. 2, ch. 8
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
“Let us then blend everything: love, religion, genius, with sunshine, perfume, music, and poetry.”
Bk. 10, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)
Original: (fr) 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.
Source: De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813), Pt. 3, ch. 13
Sketch of the Life, Character, and Writings of Baroness de Staël-Holstein (1820) by Albertine-Adrienne Necker de Saussure, p. 349; often misquoted as, "I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer."
“Understanding everything makes one very indulgent.”
Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent.
Bk. 18, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)
“Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.”
Bk. 7, ch. 1
Corinne (1807)
Bk. 13, ch. 4, as translated by Letitia Elizabeth Landon for Isabel Hill (1833)
Corinne (1807)
“All that is natural is varied.”
Tout ce qui est naturel est varié.
Bk. 1, ch. 4
Corinne (1807)
“Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?”
Bk. 14, ch. 1
Corinne (1807)
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.
Bk. 4, ch. 3
The idea that "architecture is frozen music" — an aphorism of disputed origin sometimes misattributed to de Staël — is found in a number of German writers of the period.
Corinne (1807)
“We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.”
On cesse de s'aimer si quelqu'un ne nous aime.
Sophie, or The Secret Sentiments (Sophie, ou les sentiments secrets, 1790), Act 2, sc. 8
“The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.”
Probably a paraphrase of this line from De l’Allemagne, Pt. 3. ch. 10. "Goethe has made a remark upon the perfectability of the human mind, which is full of sagacity: It is always advancing, but in a spiral line." Not known from Goethe's works.
Misattributed
“The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.”
Sometimes published as an anonymous saying, this was attributed to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in Is It Nothing To You? Social Purity, A Grave Moral Question (1884) by Henry Rowley, p. 88; to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in "Would You Be Re-elected", Munsey's Magazine (April 1909), p. 769; and to de Staël in Aspects of Western Civilization : Problems and Sources in History (2003), p. 294
Disputed
L'esprit consiste à connaître la ressemblance des choses diverses et la différence des choses semblables.
Pt. 3, ch. 8
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
“Danger is like wine, it goes to your head.”
Bk. 12, ch. 2
Corinne (1807)
“The admiration of the beautiful always has relation to the Divinity.”
Pt. 4, ch. 1
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
Original: (fr) L'admiration pour le beau se rapporte toujours à la Divinité.
“Religion is nothing, if it is not everything; if existence is not filled with it.”
Pt. 4, ch. 1
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
Original: (fr) La religion n'est rien si elle n'est pas tout, si l'existence n'en est pas remplie.
The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales, 1800), Pt. 2, ch. 4
