Recollections Quotes by 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…

— 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

in Italy, almost at every step, history and poetry add to the graces of nature, sweeten the memory of the past, and seem to…

— Madame de Stael

[Ridicule] laughs at all those who see the earnestness of life and who still believe in true feelings and in serious thought ... It…

— Madame de Stael

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

— Madame de Stael

The more we know the better we forgive. Whoever feels deeply, feels for all who live.

— Madame de Stael

Let us then blend everything: love, religion, genius, with sunshine, perfume, music, and poetry.

— Madame de Stael

Man's most valuable faculty is his imagination.

— Madame de Stael

Taste is to literature what bon ton is in society.

— Madame de Stael

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

— 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

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

If we would succeed in works of the imagination, we must offer a mild morality in the midst of rigid manners; but where the…

— Madame de Stael

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

— Madame de Stael

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

— Madame de Stael