Anne-Louise Germaine Necker cytaty

„Jaka jestem szczęśliwa, że nie urodziłam się mężczyzną, bo gdyby tak się stało, musiałabym poślubić kobietę.”

„Szczęście składa się ze wspomnień nieszczęść, których zdołaliśmy uniknąć.”

„Szczęście jest stanem poważnym.”

Źródło: Wielka księga mądrości, wybór Jacek i Tomasz Ilga

„Postanowiłam zbadać, jaki wpływ ma na literaturę religia, obyczaje i prawo oraz jaki wpływ na religię, obyczaje i prawo wywiera literatura (…). Wydaje mi się, że przyczyny moralne i polityczne, które zmieniają ducha literatury, nie zostały dostatecznie zanalizowane (…).”

Źródło: Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Pisma z etyki i teorii szczęścia, Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1992, s. 178.

„Miłość, która jest epizodem w życiu mężczyzny, stanowi całą historię życia kobiety.”

Źródło: Jerzy Adamski, Historia literatury francuskiej. Zarys, Wrocław 1989, s. 133.

„Prawdziwie piękne jest to, co czyni człowieka lepszym.”

Inna wersja: Miłość to historia życia kobiety, epizod w życiu mężczyzny.
Źródło: Franciszek Urbańczyk, Problemy oświaty dorosłych, Państwowe Zakłady Wydawnictw Szkolnych, 1973, s. 241.

„Samotność jest przedsionkiem śmierci.”

„Łagodna kobieta to niby łapka kocia, uściśnij ją nieco, a uczujesz pazurki.”

„Dla mężczyzn miłość jest celem; trwałość tego uczucia jest jedynym szczęściem niewiasty.”

Anne-Louise Germaine Necker Cytaty o miłości

„Miłość to egoizm we dwoje.”

„Miłość niewiasty jest częstokroć potrzebą jej zmysłów, przyjaźń zaś jest zawsze potrzebą jej serca i duszy.”

Źródło: Przykazania etyki prawniczej: księga myśli, norm i rycin, oprac. Roman Tokarczyk, wyd. Wolters Kluwer Polska, s. 30.

“When men do wrong, it is out of hardness; when women do wrong, it is out of weakness.”

Anne-Louise Germaine Necker: Cytaty po angielsku

“Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 6, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)

“The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement.”

The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les istitutions sociales, 1800) , Pt. 2, ch. 4
Kontekst: 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.

“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.”

“Men do not change; they unmask themselves.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

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)

“Beauty is one in the universe, and, whatever form it assumes, it always arouses a religious feeling in the hearts of mankind.”

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.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 8, ch. 2
Corinne (1807)

“A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 20, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)

“The search for the truth is the noblest of occupations, and its publication a duty.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Delphine

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 sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us.”

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)

“Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.”

Pt. 4, ch. 10
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)

“When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.”

Quoted in A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1880) collected and translated by J. D. Finod, p. 138

“In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 4, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)

“Atheism exists only in coldness, selfishness, and baseness.”

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

“Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 10, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)

“Let us then blend everything: love, religion, genius, with sunshine, perfume, music, and poetry.”

Pt. 2, ch. 8
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)

“Frivolity, under whatever form it appears, deprives attention of its power, thought of its originality, and sentiment of its depth.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 10, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)

“The 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 Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 1, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)

“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.”

Oryginał: (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.
Źródło: De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813), Pt. 3, ch. 13

“Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, fame, and love.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Delphine

Delphine (1802), Preface

“The rules are only barriers to keep children from falling.”

Reflections on Suicide (Réflexions sur le suicide, 1813), Section 1

“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.”

Ces règles ne sont que des barrières pour empêcher les enfants de tomber.
Pt. 4, ch. 9
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)

“One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.”

The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800), Pt. 2, ch. 5

“Madame de Staël thought it was pride in mankind to endeavour to penetrate the secret of the universe; and speaking of the higher metaphysics she said: "I prefer the Lord's Prayer to it all."”

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).

“You do not reach the sublime by degrees; the distance between it and the merely beautiful is infinite.”

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."

“Love is the whole history of a woman's life; it is an episode in a man's.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 4, ch. 3
Corinne (1807)

“Understanding everything makes one very indulgent.”

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

“Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent.
Bk. 18, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)

“A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.”

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël książka Corinne

Bk. 7, ch. 1
Corinne (1807)