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 quotes1 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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

L&#x27;injustice…est une mère qui n&#x27;est jamais sterile, et qui produit des enfants dignes d&#x27;elle. <br class="br">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. <br class="br">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. <br class="br">Misattributed

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

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

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.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

On “the phenomenon of grace.”

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

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