Le Rouge Et Le Noir: Chronique Du Xixe Siècle

“A good book is an event in my life.””

— Stendhal

“A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.””

— Stendhal

“Our true passions are selfish.””

— Stendhal

“Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless, than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it criticizes itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.””

— Stendhal

“A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succeeded. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.””

— Stendhal

“After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.””

— Stendhal

“Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.””

— Stendhal

“The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.””

— Stendhal

“Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.””

— Stendhal