• A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.
• The language of religion can alone suit every situation and every mode of feeling.
• 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.
• To pray together, in whatever tongue or ritual, is the most tender brotherhood of hope and sympathy that men can contract in this life.
• The soul is a fire that darts its rays through all the senses; it is in this fire that existence consists; all the observations and all the efforts of philosophers ought to turn towards this Me, the centre and moving power of our sentiments and our ideas.
• Have you not observed that faith is generally strongest in those whose character may be called the weakest?
• 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.
• 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.
• Divine wisdom, intending to detain us some time on earth, has done well to cover with a veil the prospect of life to come; for if our sight could clearly distinguish the opposite bank, who would remain on this tempestuous coast?
• When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
• It is difficult to grow old gracefully.
• However old a conjugal union, it still garners some sweetness. Winter has some cloudless days, and under the snow a few flowers still bloom.
• We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.
• How true it is that, sooner or later, the most rebellious must bow beneath the yoke of misfortune!
• Men have made of fortune an all-powerful goddess, in order that she may be made responsible for all their blunder's.
• Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love; the shores of existence are strewn with them.
• I see that time divided is never long, and that regularity abridges all things.
• Doubtless the human face is the grandest of all mysteries; yet fixed on canvas it can hardly tell of more than one sensation; no struggle, no successive contrasts accessible to dramatic art, can painting give, as neither time nor motion exists for her.
• 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.
• 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.
• Architecture is frozen music!
• Music revives the recollections it would appease.
• Truth and, by consequence, liberty, will always be the chief power of honest men.
• When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.
• 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.
• Whatever is natural admits of variety.
• 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.
• The only equitable manner in my opinion, of judging the character of a man is to examine if there are personal calculations in his conduct; if there are not, we may blame his manner of judging, but we are not the less bound to esteem him.
• The most careful reasoning characters are very often the most easily abashed.
• To be totally understanding makes one very indulgent.
• [O]ld and free England should be inspired with admiration by the progress of America.
• Napoleon Bonaparte, about Madame de Stael: "They say that she does not speak of politics or me; but how does it happen that all who speak to her come to like me less?"
• About her, after Napoleon fell: "There are only three powers left in Europe -- Russia, England, and Madame de Staël."
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About These Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2006. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.
Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Madame de Stael Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/madame_de_stael.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)
