The production of a work of art is determined by the material and intellectual climate in which a man lives and dies.
Hippolyte TaineChange a virtue in its circumstances find it becomes a vice; change a vice in its circumstances, and it becomes a virtue. Regard the same quality from two sides; on one it is a fault, on the other a merit. The essential of a man is found concealed far below these moral badges.
Hippolyte TaineIn the stormy current of life characters are weights or floats which at one time make us glide along the bottom, and at another maintain us on the surface.
Hippolyte Taine