“A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.”

— Madame de Staël, Delphine (1802), epigraph

About Madame de Staël

1766 – 1817

French-Swiss writer and salon hostess, author of "Corinne".

“To understand makes one very indulgent.”

“We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.”

“Love is the whole history of a woman's life; it is an episode in a man's.”

“Why, what is weeping and sighing? A judgement. What is misfortune? A judgement.”

“Remember that all is opinion.”

“The universe is flux, life is opinion.”

“He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.”

“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion—to characterize our age.”

“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.”