Germaine de Staël Quotes

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 admiration of the beautiful always has relation to the Divinity.

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

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

Le sens de ce mot, chez les Grecs, en est la plus noble définition: l'enthousiasme signifie Dieu en nous .

Superstition attaches to this life, and religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, and religion to virtue; it is from the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious, and it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these same desires that we are religious.

L'admiration pour le beau se rapporte toujours à la Divinité.

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.

The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.

La recherche de la vérité est la plus noble des occupations, et sa publication un devoir.

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

All that is natural is varied.

L'esprit consiste à connaître la ressemblance des choses diverses et la différence des choses semblables.

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

La religion n'est rien si elle n'est pas tout, si l'existence n'en est pas remplie.