inventiveness is childish, practice sublime. Madame de Stael More Quotes by Madame de Stael More Quotes From Madame de Stael The success of any man with any woman is apt to displease even his best friends. Madame de Stael men What is love, if it can calculate and provide against its own decay? Madame de Stael what-is-lovedecayifs The thing that must be preserved in all situations whatever is the reputation of one's character. Madame de Stael reputationsituationcharacter We always cut our poetical theories to suit our talent. Madame de Stael suitscuttingpoetry If one hour's work is enough to govern France, four minutes is all that is needed for Italy. There is no nation more easily frightened; even its poetic imagination predisposes it to fear, and they look upon power as on an image that fills them with terror. Madame de Stael fourimaginationlooks in Italy, almost at every step, history and poetry add to the graces of nature, sweeten the memory of the past, and seem to preserve it in eternal youth. Madame de Stael gracememoriespast One must, so long as there is any life left, back up the character of one's life. Madame de Stael leftcharacterlong Why shouldn't man be as angry about not having always been alive as about having to stop being alive? Madame de Stael alivemenlife Life teaches much, but to all thinking persons it brings ever closer the will of God - not because their faculties decline, but on the contrary, because they increase. Madame de Stael increasegodthinking I never was able to believe in the existence of next year except as in a metaphysical notion. Madame de Stael futurebelieveyears Happy the land where the writers are sad, the merchants satisfied, the rich melancholic, and the populace content. Madame de Stael richsatisfiedland Nothing recalls the past like music. Madame de Stael recallsmusicpast the last steps of life are ever slow and difficult. Madame de Stael lastsagesteps Conversation as talent exists only in France. In other countries, conversation provides politeness, discussion, and friendship; in France, it is an art for which imagination and soul are certainly very welcome, but which can also provide its own secret remedies to compensate you for the absence of either or both, if you so desire. Madame de Stael imaginationcountryart The most beautiful landscapes in the world, if they evoke no memory, if they bear no trace of a remarkable event, are uninteresting compared to historic landscapes. Madame de Stael eventsbeautifulmemories New doctrines ever displease the old. They like to fancy that the world has been losing wisdom, instead of gaining it, since they were young. Madame de Stael doctrinefancyworld 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. Madame de Stael fablesprogressevil It seems to me that life's circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read. Madame de Stael realselffeelings You do not reach the sublime by degrees; the distance between it and the merely beautiful is infinite. Madame de Stael distancesublimebeautiful Frivolity, under whatever form it appears, deprives attention of its power, thought of its originality, and sentiment of its depth. Madame de Stael originalitydepthattention
