Hippolyte Taine Quotes

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

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

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.

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

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.