Suzanne Curchod (1739–94,) also Suzanne Necker, often referenced in historical documents as Madame Necker, was a French-Swiss essayist and salonnière.
Born in Crassier, Switzerland, Curchod was the daughter of a pastor. She grew up near Lausanne and received an excellent education in ancient and modern literature. She was the wife of Jacques Necker, a Swiss financier and French diplomat in the court of King Louis XVI. Their daughter was the woman of letters and political theorist Germaine de Staël.
Curchod promoted the education of women and advocated a court of women to arbitrate petitions for legal separations. She also led the development of the Hospice de Charité, a prototypical small hospital in Paris that still exists today as the Parisian teaching hospital Hôpital Necker-Enfants Malades.
Curchod hosted one of the most distinguished salons of the Ancien Régime for philosophers and encyclopaedists. She was prized for her honesty and intelligence. She wrote books and articles on literary and moral topics; her assorted works were published as Mélanges extraits des manuscrits (1798; Various Extracts from Manuscripts) and Nouveaux Mélanges (1801; Further Extracts.)
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Romance is the poetry of literature.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Romance
The heart of a good man is the sanctuary of God in this world.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Heart
To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Appreciation
Obstinacy is ever most positive when it is most in the wrong.
—Suzanne Curchod
Innocence and mystery never dwell long together.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Innocence
The quarrels of lovers are like summer storms. Everything is more beautiful when they have passed.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Quarrels, Love
It is never permissible to say “I say.”
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Egotism
Where love and wisdom drink out of the same cup, in this everyday world, it is the exception.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Love
How immense appear to us the sins that we have not committed.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Sin
A pure style in writing results from the rejection of everything superfluous.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Style
Gallantry thrives most in the atmosphere of the court.
—Suzanne Curchod
The most subtle flattery a woman can receive is that conveyed by actions, not by words.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Flattery
The inconvenience, or the beauty of the blush, which is the greater?
—Suzanne Curchod
Fortune does not change men; it unmasks them.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Integrity
A certain amount of distrust is wholesome, but not so much of others as of ourselves.—Neither vanity nor conceit can exist in the same atmosphere with it.
—Suzanne Curchod
Too many wish to be happy before becoming wise.
—Suzanne Curchod
Topics: Joy, Wisdom
We smile at the satire expended upon the follies of others, but we forget to weep at our own.
—Suzanne Curchod
It were no virtue to bear calamities if we do not feel them.
—Suzanne Curchod
Recognized probity is the surest of all oaths.
—Suzanne Curchod