“The rules are only barriers to keep children from falling.”
Ces règles ne sont que des barrières pour empêcher les enfants de tomber.
Pt. 4, ch. 9
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800), Pt. 2, ch. 5
“One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.”
Letter to Claude Hochet (Summer 1800), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 223
Herold comments: "Her decision was emphatically in favor of suffering, which after all was a pleasure compared to boredom." (p. 224)
The actual quotation is from a letter from Mme de Staël to Claude Hochet dated October 1, 1800 : «Il faut choisir dans la vie entre l’ennui et le tourment : je donne l’un et l’hiver l’autre» (Germaine de Staël, Correspondance générale. Tome IV. Première partie. Du directoire au Consulat. 1er décembre 1796-15 décembre 1800, texte établi et présenté par Béatrice W. Jasinski, Paris, Chez Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1976, xii/337 p., p. 326).
Sketch of the Life, Character, and Writings of Baroness de Staël-Holstein (1820) by Albertine-Adrienne Necker de Saussure, p. 349; often misquoted as, "I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer."
“Love is the whole history of a woman's life; it is an episode in a man's.”
L'amour est l'histoire de la vie des femmes; c'est un épisode dans celle des hommes.
A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions (De l'influence des passions, 1796), Section 1, ch. 4
“Understanding everything makes one very indulgent.”
Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent.
Bk. 18, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)
“Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.”
Bk. 7, ch. 1
Corinne (1807)
“A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.”
Bk. 10, ch. 5
Corinne (1807)
Ten Years' Exile (Dix années d'exil, written 1810–1813, posthumously published 1821), ch. 16
Bk. 13, ch. 4, as translated by Letitia Elizabeth Landon for Isabel Hill (1833)
Corinne (1807)
“All that is natural is varied.”
Tout ce qui est naturel est varié.
Bk. 1, ch. 4
Corinne (1807)
“Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?”
Bk. 14, ch. 1
Corinne (1807)
La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée, qui vous attend pour vous faire du bien quand vous vous en approchez.
Bk. 4, ch. 3
The idea that "architecture is frozen music" — an aphorism of disputed origin sometimes misattributed to de Staël — is found in a number of German writers of the period.
Corinne (1807)
“We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.”
On cesse de s'aimer si quelqu'un ne nous aime.
Sophie, or The Secret Sentiments (Sophie, ou les sentiments secrets, 1790), Act 2, sc. 8
“The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.”
Probably a paraphrase of this line from De l’Allemagne, Pt. 3. ch. 10. "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." Not known from Goethe's works.
Misattributed
“The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.”
Sometimes published as an anonymous saying, this was attributed to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in Is It Nothing To You? Social Purity, A Grave Moral Question (1884) by Henry Rowley, p. 88; to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in "Would You Be Re-elected", Munsey's Magazine (April 1909), p. 769; and to de Staël in Aspects of Western Civilization : Problems and Sources in History (2003), p. 294
Disputed
L'esprit consiste à connaître la ressemblance des choses diverses et la différence des choses semblables.
Pt. 3, ch. 8
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
“Danger is like wine, it goes to your head.”
Bk. 12, ch. 2
Corinne (1807)
“The admiration of the beautiful always has relation to the Divinity.”
Pt. 4, ch. 1
De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)
Добавить примечание: (fr) L'admiration pour le beau se rapporte toujours à la Divinité.