Taine Quotes & Sayings

We study ourselves three weeks, we love each other three months, we squabble three years, we tolerate each other thirty years, and then the children start all over again. — Hippolyte Taine

Man may be considered as a superior species of animal that produces philosophies and poems in about the same way a silkworm produces their cocoons and bees their hives. — Hippolyte Taine

I wish to reproduce things as they are or as they would be even if I myself did not exist. — Hippolyte Taine

Amid this vast and overwhelming space and in these boundless solar archipelagoes, how small is our own sphere, and the earth, what a grain of sand! — Hippolyte Taine

Change 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 Taine

There are four types of men in the world: lovers, opportunists, lookers-on, and imbeciles. The happiest are the imbeciles. — Hippolyte Taine

To have a true idea of man or of life, one must have stood himself on the brink of suicide, or on the door-sill of insanity, at least once. — Hippolyte Taine

Not only does the State do the work badly on a domain not its own, bunglingly, at greater cost, and with less fruit than spontaneous organizations, but, again, through the legal monopoly which it deems its prerogative, or through the overwhelming competition which it exercises, it kills or paralyzes these natural organizations or prevents their birth; and hence so many precious organs, which, absorbed, atropic or abortive, are lost to the great social body. — Hippolyte Taine

The more I study the things of the mind the more mathematical I find them. In them as in mathematics it is a question of quantities; they must be treated with precision. I have never had more satisfaction than in proving this in the realms of art, politics and history. — Hippolyte Taine

History is nothing but a problem of mechanics applied to psychology. — Hippolyte Taine

His tongue is by turns a sponge, a brush, a comb. He cleans himself, he smooths himself, he knows what is proper. — Hippolyte Taine

For thirty centuries, from her sacred seat the cat looked down, and crouching at her feet, beheld the race of conquering Pharaohs kneel. — Hippolyte Taine

Kindly politeness is the slow fruit of advanced reflection; it is a sort of humanity and kindliness applied to small acts and every day discourse: it bids man soften towards others, and forget himself for the sake of others: it constrains genuine nature, which is selfish and gross. — Hippolyte Taine

The production of a work of art is determined by the material and intellectual climate in which a man lives and dies. — Hippolyte Taine

In 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

We should, I believe, beware of the pitfalls described by Taine: 'Imagine a man who sets out on a voyage equipped with a pair of spectacles that magnify things to an extraordinary degree. A hair on his hand, a spot on the tablecloth, the shifting fold of a coat, all will attract his attention; at this rate, he will not go far, he will spend his day taking six steps and will never get out of his room.' We have to get out of this room. — Robert Kennedy

Remember the words of Taine: "for a young person the world always seems a scandalous place". Later in life, the world seems only to be an imperfect place which can be worked on here and there. I'm told that finally, in old age, the world becomes either infinitely amusing or infinitely annoying - according to one's temperament. — Frank Moorhouse

There are four varieties in society - the lovers, the ambitious, observers, and fools. The fools are the happiest. — Hippolyte Taine

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior. — Hippolyte Taine

After the collection of facts, the search for causes. — Hippolyte Taine

A fixed idea is like the iron rod which sculptors put in their statues. It impales and sustains. — Hippolyte Taine