Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Taine
Hippolyte Adolphe Tainewas a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him. Taine is particularly remembered for his three-pronged approach to the contextual study of a work of art, based on the aspects of what he called "race, milieu, and moment"...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth21 April 1828
CountryFrance
I've met many thinkers and many cats, but the wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
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!
His tongue is by turns a sponge, a brush, a comb. He cleans himself, he smooths himself, he knows what is proper.
History is nothing but a problem of mechanics applied to psychology.
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.
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.
I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.