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The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.

Stendhal

A good book is an event in my life.
STENDHAL

Book Goodness Life
It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now.
STENDHAL

Noble Past Reading Style Time Writing
The sight of anything extremely beautiful, in nature or in art, brings back the memory of what one loves, with the speed of lightning.
STENDHAL

Beautiful Light Love Sight Speed
Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.
STENDHAL

Hypocrisy Mathematics Vague
Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the youth of France! Who is to take his place?
STENDHAL

God Help Man Place Youth
Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.
STENDHAL

Beautiful Happiness Promise
Our true passions are selfish.
STENDHAL

One Liner Ourselves Passion Selfish
The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.
STENDHAL

Distance Imitation Time
Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.
STENDHAL

Happiness Love Power Source
At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.
STENDHAL

Authority Distance Sight Subject
When you want to court a woman, court her sister first
STENDHAL

Court Herself Sister Woman Yourself
The ordinary procedure of the nineteenth century is that when a powerful and noble personage encounters a man of feeling, he kills, exiles, imprisons or so humiliates him that the other, like a fool, dies of grief.
STENDHAL

Death Fools Grief Man Ordinary Personage Powerful Procedure
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.
STENDHAL

Break Character Generosity Life Pride Question Sacrifice Woman
There is no such thing as “natural law”: this expression is nothing but old nonsense… Prior to laws, what is natural is only the strength of the lion, or the need of the creature suffering from hunger or cold, in short, need.
STENDHAL

Cold Hungry Law Natural Need Strength Suffering
People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that to be found in reading a story.
STENDHAL

Happiness People Pleasure Reading Remind Suffering
Friendship has its illusions no less than love.
STENDHAL

Friendship Illusion Love

The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.

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The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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