Madame de Stael
Madame de Stael
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French woman of letters of Swiss origin whose lifetime overlapped with the events of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. She was one of Napoleon's principal opponents. Celebrated for her conversational eloquence, she participated actively in the political and intellectual life of her times. Her works, both critical and fictional, made their mark on the history of European Romanticism...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth22 April 1766
CountryFrance
Love is the whole history of a woman's life, it is but an episode in a man's.
Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty.
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.
Kindness and generosity ... form the true morality of human actions.
One must choose in life between boredom and suffering.
Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.
If we would succeed in works of the imagination, we must offer a mild morality in the midst of rigid manners; but where the manners are corrupt, we must consistently hold up to view an austere morality.
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.
Truth and, by consequence, liberty, will always be the chief power of honest men.
Be happy, but be happy through piety.
Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?
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 most careful reasoning characters are very often the most easily abashed.
I learn life from the poets.