110+ Madame de Stael Quotes On Education, Germany And Feminist

Madame de Stael was a French writer and political activist who lived during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She was a prominent figure in the French literary scene and was known for her outspoken views on politics and literature. Her most famous works include Corinne, or Italy and De l'Allemagne. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Madame de Stael on education, life, love.

Top 10 Madame De Stael Quotes

1. Prayer is more than meditation. In meditation, the source of strength is one's self. When one prays, he goes to a source of strength greater than his own.
2. Goethe has made a remark upon the perfectability of the human mind, which is full of sagacity: It is always advancing, but in a spiral line.
3. Love is the symbol of eternity.
4. Prayer is the life of the soul.
5. The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.
6. As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
7. In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.
8. Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.
9. Love is admiring with the heart. And admiring is loving with the mind.
10. The more I see of man, the more I like dogs.

Madame De Stael Short Quotes

• Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak.
• How true it is that, sooner or later, the' most rebellious must bow beneath the yoke of misfortune!
• Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.
• The world is the work of a single thought, expressed in a thousand different ways.
• When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue.
• Music revives the recollections it would appease.
• Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.
• To live beneath sorrow, one must yield to it.
• Intellect does not attain its full force unless it attacks power.
• Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Madame de Stael Quotes About Life

Life often seems like a long shipwreck of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love. - The shores of existence are strewn with them. — Madame de Stael

The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes. — Madame de Stael

A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn. — Madame de Stael

Love is the history of a woman's life; it is an episode in man's. [Fr., L'amour est l'histoire de la vie des femmes; c'est un episode dans celle des hommes.] — Madame de Stael

Enthusiasm gives life to what is invisible; and interest to what has no immediate action on our comfort in this world. — Madame de Stael

To pray together, in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that man can contract in this life. — Madame de Stael

Superstition is related to this life, religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, religion to virtue; it is by the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious; it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these desires that we become religious. — Madame de Stael

A voyage without companionship, that is to say without conversation, is one of the saddest pleasures of life. — Madame de Stael

Life teaches much, but to all thinking persons it brings ever closer the will of God - not because their faculties decline, but on the contrary, because they increase. — Madame de Stael

Divine Wisdom, intending to detain us some time on earth, has done well to cover with a veil the prospect of the life to come; for if our sight could clearly distinguish the opposite bank, who would remain on this tempestuous coast of time? — Madame de Stael

Madame de Stael Quotes About Love

We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love — Madame de Stael

However old a conjugal union, it still garners some sweetness. Winter has some cloudless days, and under the snow a few flowers still bloom. — Madame de Stael

Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end. — Madame de Stael

Happiness is a wondrous commodity: the more you give, the more you have. — Madame de Stael

When at eve, at the bounding of the landscape, the heavens appear to recline so slowly on the earth, imagination pictures beyond the horizon an asylum of hope, - a native land of love; and nature seems silently to repeat that man is immortal. — Madame de Stael

We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love. — Madame de Stael

Love, supreme power of the heart, mysterious enthusiasm that encloses in itself all poetry, all heroism, all religion! — Madame de Stael

Self-love, so sensitive in its own cause, has rarely any sympathy to spare for others. — Madame de Stael

The mind may be exhausted, but the language of the heart is inexhaustible. — Madame de Stael

There is no reality on this earth except religion and the power of love; all the rest is even more fugitive than life itself. — Madame de Stael

Madame de Stael Quotes About Progress

Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened. — Madame de Stael

The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals. — Madame de Stael

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. — Madame de Stael

Madame de Stael Famous Quotes And Sayings

Of all human sentiments, enthusiasm creates the most happiness; it is the only sentiment in fact which gives real happiness, the only sentiment which can help us to bear our human destiny in any situation in which we may find ourselves. — Madame de Stael

And all the bustle of departure - sometimes sad, sometimes intoxicating - just as fear or hope may be inspired by the new chances of coming destiny. — Madame de Stael

Nature, who permits no two leaves to be exactly alike, has given a still greater diversity to human minds. Imitation, then, is a double murder; for it deprives both copy and original of their primitive existence. — Madame de Stael

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. — Madame de Stael

Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike. — Madame de Stael

Madame de Stael 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." — Madame de Stael

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it. — Madame de Stael

The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies 'God in us.' — Madame de Stael

The people are as severe toward the clergy as toward women; they want to see absolute devotion to duty from both. — Madame de Stael

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

When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power. — Madame de Stael

Venice astonishes more than it pleases at first sight. — Madame de Stael

I do not want an echo of myself from my children. I do not want to hear from them merely the reverberation of my own voice. — Madame de Stael

If it were not for respect for human opinions, I would not open my window to see the Bay of Naples for the first time, whilst I would go five hundred leagues to talk with a man of genius whom I had not seen. — Madame de Stael

Courage of soul is necessary for the triumphs of genius. — Madame de Stael

I believe that happiness consists in having a destiny in keeping with our abilities. Our desires are things of the moment, often harmful even to ourselves; but our abilities are permanent, and their demands never cease. — Madame de Stael

Good taste cannot supply the place of genius in literature, for the best proof of taste, when there is no genius, would be, not to write at all. — Madame de Stael

Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society. — Madame de Stael

Strangers are contemporary posterity. [Fr., Les etrangers sont la posterite contemporaine.] — Madame de Stael

A Gothic building engenders true religion ... The light, falling through colored glass, the singular forms of the architecture, unite to give a silent image of that infinite mystery which the soul for ever feels, and never comprehends. — Madame de Stael

Atheism exists only in coldness, selfishness, and baseness. — Madame de Stael

When women oppose themselves to the projects and ambition of men, they excite their lively resentment; if in their youth they meddle with political intrigues, their modesty must suffer. — Madame de Stael

Glory can be for a woman but the brilliant morning of happiness. — Madame de Stael

Providence protects us in all the details of our lot. — Madame de Stael

Wit lies in the likeness of things that are different, and in the difference of things that are alike. — Madame de Stael

O memory, thou bitter sweet,--both a joy and a scourge! — Madame de Stael

Anything that happens gradually is always irrevocable. — Madame de Stael

Whatever is natural admits of variety. — Madame de Stael

There are women vain of advantages not connected with their persons, such as birth, rank, and fortune; it is difficult to feel less the dignity of the sex. The origin of all women may be called celestial, for their power is the offspring of the gifts of Nature; by yielding to pride and ambition they soon destroy the magic of their charms. — Madame de Stael

Mystery such as is given of God is beyond the power of human penetration, yet not in opposition to it. — Madame de Stael

Truth and, by consequence, liberty, will always be the chief power of honest men. — Madame de Stael

Every time a new nation, America or Russia for instance, advances toward civilization, the human race perfects itself; every time an inferior class emerges from enslavement and degradation, the human race again perfects itself. — Madame de Stael

The egotism of woman is always for two. — Madame de Stael

[The Germans] so easily confuse obstinacy with energy, and rudeness with firmness. — Madame de Stael

It seems to me that we become more dear one to the other, in together admiring works of art, which speak to the soul by their true grandeur. — Madame de Stael

Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it. — Madame de Stael

Man's most valuable faculty is his imagination. — Madame de Stael

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man. — Madame de Stael

Gaiety pleases more when we are assured that it does not cover carelessness. — Madame de Stael

The entire social order ... is arrayed against a woman who wants to rise to a man's reputation. — Madame de Stael

... in the history of the human mind there has never been a useful thought or a profound truth that has not found its century and admirers. — Madame de Stael

Purity of mind and conduct is the first glory of a woman. — Madame de Stael

If one hour's work is enough to govern France, four minutes is all that is needed for Italy. There is no nation more easily frightened; even its poetic imagination predisposes it to fear, and they look upon power as on an image that fills them with terror. — Madame de Stael

Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents? — Madame de Stael

Never, never have I been loved as I love others! — Madame de Stael

Happy the land where the writers are sad, the merchants satisfied, the rich melancholic, and the populace content. — Madame de Stael

Why shouldn't man be as angry about not having always been alive as about having to stop being alive? — Madame de Stael

To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent. — Madame de Stael

Men have made of fortune an all-powerful goddess, in order that she may be made responsible for all their blunder's. — Madame de Stael

We always cut our poetical theories to suit our talent. — Madame de Stael

One must choose in life between boredom and suffering. — Madame de Stael

I learn life from the poets. — Madame de Stael

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us. — Madame de Stael

There is no second country for an Englishman, except a ship and the sea. — Madame de Stael

It is not enough to forgive; one must forget. — Madame de Stael

nothing is so horrifying as the possibility of existing simply because we do not know how to die. — Madame de Stael

Liberty is the only idea which circulates with the human blood, in all ages, in all countries, and in all literature - liberty that is, and what cannot be separated from liberty, a love of country. — Madame de Stael

What is love, if it can calculate and provide against its own decay? — Madame de Stael

The universe is in France; outside it, there is nothing. — Madame de Stael

Where no interest is takes in science, literature and liberal pursuits, mere facts and insignificant criticisms necessarily become the themes of discourse; and minds, strangers alike to activity and meditation, become so limited as to render all intercourse with them at once tasteless and oppressive. — Madame de Stael

Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's. — Madame de Stael

The pursuit of politics is religion, morality, and poetry all in one. — Madame de Stael

there is not enough interest in life to spread over twenty-four hours when one can't sleep. — Madame de Stael

[On Russia:] In every way, there is something gigantic about this people: ordinary dimensions have no applications whatever to it. I do not mean by this that true greatness and stability are never met with; but their boldness, their imaginativeness knows no bounds. With them everything is colossal rather than well-proportioned, audacious rather than well-considered, and if they do not attain their goals, it is because they exceed them. — Madame de Stael

Unhappy love freezes all our affections: our own souls grow inexplicable to us. More than we gained while we were happy we lose by the reverse. — Madame de Stael

Be happy, but be happy through piety. — Madame de Stael

The face of a woman, whatever be the force or extent of her mind, whatever be the importance of the object she pursues, is always an obstacle or a reason in the story of her life. — Madame de Stael

All music, even if its occasion be a gay one, renders us pensive. — Madame de Stael

Life Lessons by Madame de Stael

1. Madame de Stael taught that it is important to be open-minded and to embrace new ideas and experiences. She also believed that it is important to be passionate and to strive for excellence in all aspects of life.
2. She also encouraged her readers to be independent and to think for themselves, rather than relying on the opinions of others.
3. Finally, Madame de Stael taught that life should be lived with joy, courage, and optimism, no matter what obstacles may arise.