Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve Quotes

...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.

On “the phenomenon of grace”. “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”.

Gardons-nous de l'ironie en jugeant. De toutes les dispositions de l'esprit, l'ironie est la moins intelligente.

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

Il m'a souvent passe par l'esprit, dit Gourville, que les hommes ont leurs proprietes a peu pres commes les herbes, et que leur bonheur consiste d'avoir ete destines ou de s'etre destines eux-memes aux choses pour lesquelles ils etaient nes.

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.

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

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

It has often passed through my mind, says Gourville, that men have their properties almost as herbs, and that their happiness consists in having been destined or [being] destined for the things for which they were born.