Hippolyte Taine Quotes

• I've met many thinkers and many cats, but the wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.

  Hippolyte Taine

  Funny, Witty, Cat

  56 Copy quote

• Four varieties in society: lovers, the ambitious, observers, and fools. The fools are the happiest.

  Hippolyte Taine

  Ambitious, Four, Fool

  "Notes on Paris".

  18 Copy quote

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

  Hippolyte Taine

  Art, Men, Intellectual

  "Philosophy of Art". Book by Hippolyte Taine, 1865.

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Children, Years, Three

  22 Copy quote

• The search for causes must come after the collection of facts.

  Hippolyte Taine

  History, Causes, Facts

  "History of English Literature".

  20 Copy quote

• 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

  Selfish, Reflection, Men

  Hippolyte Taine (1904). “History of English literature”

  21 Copy quote

• History is nothing but a problem of mechanics applied to psychology.

  Hippolyte Taine

  History, Psychology, Problem

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Suicide, Men, Doors

  Hippolyte Taine (1888). “Notes on Paris”

  13 Copy quote

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

  Hippolyte Taine

  Ideas, Iron, Fixed

  Hippolyte Taine (1875). “Notes on Paris”, p.58

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Men, Two Sides, Quality

  Hippolyte Taine (1871). “History of English Literature”, p.401

  8 Copy quote

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

  Hippolyte Taine

  Men, Stupidity, World

  92 Copy quote

• 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

  Philosophy, Men, Animal

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Space, Earth, Spheres

  Hippolyte Taine (1876). “The Modern Régime”

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Inspirational, Character, Weight

  Hippolyte Taine, John Durand (1896). “The philosophy of art. The ideal in art”

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Science, History

  Hippolyte Taine (1908). “Life and Letters of H. Taine: 1870-1892”

  8 Copy quote

• 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

  Cat, Race, Feet

  22 Copy quote

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

  Hippolyte Taine

  Wish, Would Be, Ifs

  9 Copy quote

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

  Hippolyte Taine

  Cat, Tongue, Smooth

  12 Copy quote

• There are as many kinds of modesty as there are races. To the English woman it is a duty; to the French woman a propriety.

  Hippolyte Taine

  Race, French Woman, Modesty

  Hippolyte Taine (1875). “Notes on Paris”, p.317

  7 Copy quote

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