“One can acquire everything in solitude except character.””
“I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.””
“If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us””
StendhalMarie-Henri Beyle, known by his pen name Stendhal, was a prominent French writer whose works significantly shaped the landscape of 19th-century literature. Born in Grenoble, he moved to Paris where he...
“God's only excuse is that he does not exist””
“All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.””
“Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.””
“Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.””
“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.””
“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.””
“A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.””
“After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.””
“Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.””
“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.””