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Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.

Stendhal

The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.
STENDHAL

Ability History Invention Qualification
Politics in the middle of things of the imagination is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert.
STENDHAL

Concert Imagination Politics
The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.
STENDHAL

Boredom Happiness Life
Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.
STENDHAL

Action Freedom Man Pleasure Refusal
This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
STENDHAL

Age Boredom Cure Curse Strange
Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us.
STENDHAL

Life Ourselves Perspective Wrong
Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.
STENDHAL

Hypocrisy Mathematics Vague
War was then no longer this noble and unified outburst of souls in love with glory that he had imagined from Napoleon’s proclamations.
STENDHAL

Glory Himself Imagination Noble War
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
But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
STENDHAL

Happiness Myself Pleasure Time
I call “crystallization” that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.
STENDHAL

Action Crystal Discover Event Mindset
A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth.
STENDHAL

Herself Love Man Woman Youth
At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.
STENDHAL

Authority Distance Sight Subject
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
Life is too short, and the time we waste in yawning never can be regained.
STENDHAL

Life Regain Short Wasted Time
I do not feel I have wisdom enough yet to love what is ugly.
STENDHAL

Enough Feeling Love Myself Ugly Wisdom

Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.

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Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.

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