In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.
STENDHALPerhaps men who cannot love passionately are those who feel the effect of beauty most keenly; at any rate this is the strongest impression women can make on them.
More Stendhal Quotes
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Indeed, man has two different beings inside him. What devil thought of that malicious touch?
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But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
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A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.
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One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
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Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.
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Who knows whether it is not true that phosphorus and mind are not the same thing?
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The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music.
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The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.
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If you don’t love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.
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The difference breeds hatred.
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It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now.
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All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
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A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times over for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a question of pride.
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People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of an extreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.
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In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.
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To describe happiness is to diminish it.
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Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.
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When a man leaves his mistress, he runs the risk of being betrayed two or three times daily.
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I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
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This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
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Spring appears and we are once more children.
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Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.
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Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.
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Our true passions are selfish.
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A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.
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I call “crystallization” that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.
STENDHAL