“The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed potent, not merely as sentiment but as a force; why was she unknown in America?”

—  Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The Woman had once been supreme; in France she still seemed potent, not merely as sentiment but as a force; why was she…" by Henry Adams?
Henry Adams photo
Henry Adams311
journalist, historian, academic, novelist 1838–1918

Related quotes

Henry Adams photo

“The force of the Virgin was still felt at Lourdes, and seemed to be as potent as X-rays, but in America neither Venus nor Virgin ever had value as force — at most as sentiment.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Henry James photo

“She often wondered indeed if she ever had been, or ever could be, intimate with anyone. She had an ideal of friendship as well as of several other sentiments, which it failed to seem to her in this case – it had not seemed to her in other cases – that the actual completely expressed.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady (1881), Ch. XIX.

Louisa May Alcott photo

“In vain she told herself that he was unworthy any woman's trust and love, still the unconquerable sentiment that once made her happiness now remained to become her torment.”

Louisa May Alcott A Long Fatal Love Chase

A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866)

Henry Adams photo

“That it was actual and serious in France as in the Senate Chamber at Washington, proved itself at once by forcing Adams to buy an automobile, which was a supreme demonstration because this was the form of force which Adams most abominated. He had set aside the summer for study of the Virgin, not as a sentiment but as a motive power, which had left monuments widely scattered and not easily reached. The automobile alone could unite them in any reasonable sequence, and although the force of the automobile, for the purposes of a commercial traveller, seemed to have no relation whatever to the force that inspired a Gothic cathedral, the Virgin in the twelfth century would have guided and controlled both bag-man and architect, as she controlled the seeker of history.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Cesare Pavese photo

“The really clever thing, in affairs of this sort, is not to win a woman already desired by everyone, but to discover such a prize while she is still unknown.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“Why should he remember her? Why should she remember him? She had other things to think about. She was a grown woman. She had to face life. Even if all life had to show her was a locked door, and behind the locked door, no room.”

Ursula K. Le Guin book The Eye of the Heron

Source: The Eye of the Heron (1978), Chapter 2 (p. 30)

Charles de Gaulle photo

“I am retiring. I have a mission, and it is coming to an end … France may still one day need an image that is pure. She must be left this image. If Joan of Arc had married, she would no longer have been Joan of Arc.”

Charles de Gaulle (1890–1970) eighteenth President of the French Republic

Said to Pierre Bertaux in 1944, as recounted in The Atlantic, November 1960
Fifth Republic and other post-WW2

Julia Quinn photo

“She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years.”

Julia Quinn book The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

Source: The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever

Jane Austen photo

“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Related topics