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 StaelWhy shouldn't man be as angry about not having always been alive as about having to stop being alive?
Madame de StaelConscience is doubtless sufficient to conduct the coldest character into the road of virtue; but enthusiasm is to conscience what honor is to duty; there is in us a superfluity of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful when the good has been accomplished.
Madame de StaelThe 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