Anne Louise Germaine de Staël quotes

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël was a French-Swiss writer and intellectual, renowned for her influence on European Romanticism. Her salons became centers of political and literary discussion during a time of social upheaval. She inspired generations of thinkers and writers with her passionate advocacy for freedom and reason. Here are 55 of her quotes:

To understand everything makes one very indulgent.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

The mind may be exhausted, but the language of the heart is inexhaustible.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Be happy, but be happy through piety.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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."

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

O Earth! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

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

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Danger is like wine, it goes to your head.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël