Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve Quotes

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic of French literature.

✵ 23. December 1804 – 13. October 1869
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve photo
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve: 10   quotes 1   like

Famous Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve Quotes

“Despair itself if it goes on long enough, can become a kind of sanctuary in which one settles down and feels at ease.”

Le désespoir lui-même, pour peu qu'il se prolonge, devient une sorte d'asile dans lequel on peut s'asseoir et reposer.

"Vie de Joseph Delorme" (1829), cited from Poésies completes de Sainte-Beuve (Paris: Charpentier, 1840) p. 16; Mardy Grothe Oxymoronica (London: HarperCollins, 2004) p. 201.

“Since it is necessary to have enemies, let us endeavour to have those who do us honour.”

Puisqu'il faut avoir des ennemis, tâchons d'en avoir qui nous fassent honneur.
Derniers portraits littéraires (1852; Paris: Didier, 1858) p. 534 ; translated by W. Fraser Rae, in Sainte-Beuve English Portraits (London: Dalby, Isbister, 1875) p. xci.

“Injustice…is a mother who is never barren, and bears children worthy of her.”

L'injustice…est une mère qui n'est jamais sterile, et qui produit des enfants dignes d'elle.
Causeries du lundi (Paris: Garnier, 1857) vol. 1, p. 148; E. J. Trechmann (trans.) Causeries du Lundi (London: George Routledge, 1909) vol. 1, p. 117.
Sainte-Beuve was here merely reporting words spoken by Adolphe Thiers, but many French quotation websites (e.g. Dico-Citations http://www.dico-citations.com/l-injustice-est-une-m-re-qui-n-est-jamais-st-rile-et-qui-produit-des-enfants-dignes-d-elle-sainte-beuve-charles-augustin/) attribute them to Sainte-Beuve himself.
Misattributed

“Let us beware of irony when making judgements. Of all the dispositions of the mind, irony is the least intelligent.”

Gardons-nous de l'ironie en jugeant. De toutes les dispositions de l'esprit, l'ironie est la moins intelligente.
Notebook entry, February 24, 1848, cited from Les cahiers de Sainte-Beuve (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1876) p. 75; Christopher Prendergast The Classic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 244.

“To lend freshness to things known, to spread knowledge of things new; an excellent program for a critic.”

Renouveler les choses connues, vulgariser les choses neuves: un bon programme pour un critique.
Causeries du lundi, vol. 11 (1856; Paris: Garnier, 1868) p. 512; Philo M. Buck, Jr. Literary Criticism (New York: Harper, 1930) p. 398

“A philosophical thought has probably not attained all its sharpness and all its illumination until it is expressed in French”

Society for Pure English, Tract 5 The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems Author: Society for Pure English Release Date: June 5, 2004

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve Quotes

“Silence is the sovereign contempt.”

Le silence seul est le souverain mépris.
Pensées et maximes (Paris: B. Grasset, 1954) p. 271; Nicholas Rescher Communicative Pragmatism and Other Philosophical Essays on Language (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998) p. 146.

“Most often we are judging not others, but rather our own faculties in others.”

Le plus souvent nous ne jugeons pas les autres, mais nous jugeons nos propres facultés dans les autres.
Œuvres choisies (Paris: A. Hatier, 1934) p. 774; Andrew George Lehmann Sainte-Beuve (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962) p. 301.

“...I can savor a work, but it is difficult for me to judge it independently from the author, and I would gladly say, as is the tree, so is the fruit.”

Original: (fr) ...je puis goûter une œuvre, mais il m'est difficile de la juger indépendamment de la connaissance de l'homme même, et je dirais volontiers: tel arbre, tel fruit.

“For the soul arrives therebye at a certain fixed and invincible state, a state which is genuinely heroic, and from out of which the greatest deeds it ever performs are executed.”

On “the phenomenon of grace.”

As quoted by william james in Varieties of Religious Experience Lecture 11, paragraph 3.

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