Taine Quotes. C.N. Douglas, comp. 1917. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical

C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Taine


Change a virtue in its circumstances and 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.	1
Insanity is not a distinct and separate empire; our ordinary life borders upon it, and we cross the frontier in some part of our nature.	2
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.	3
The beauty of a plastic work is, above all, plastic; and an art always degenerates when, discarding its own peculiar means for exciting interest, it borrows those of another art.	4
There are four varieties in society—the lovers, the ambitious, observers, and fools. The fools are the happiest.	5
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.	6