Madame de Stael Art Quotations

Tombs decked by the arts can scarcely represent death as a formidable enemy; we do not, indeed, like the ancients, carve sports and dances in the sarcophagus, but thought is diverted from the bier by works that tell of immortality, even from the altar of death.

It seems to me that we become more dear one to the other, in together admiring works of art, which speak to the soul by their true grandeur.

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.

There is no reality on this earth except religion and the power of love; all the rest is even more fugitive than life itself.

Unhappy love freezes all our affections: our own souls grow inexplicable to us. More than we gained while we were happy we lose by the reverse.

The mind's pleasures are made to calm the tempests of the heart.

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.

Love is admiring with the heart. And admiring is loving with the mind.

The mind may be exhausted, but the language of the heart is inexhaustible.

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts.

Love, supreme power of the heart, mysterious enthusiasm that encloses in itself all poetry, all heroism, all religion!

Beauty is one in the universe, and, whatever form it assumes, it always arouses a religious feeling in the hearts of mankind.

In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.