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Because one has little fear of shocking vanity in Italy, people adopt an intimate tone very quickly and discuss personal things.

Stendhal

God’s only excuse is that he does not exist.
STENDHAL

Excuse Existence God Himself
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.
STENDHAL

Anxiety Conscious Evidence Family Heart Intimacy Life People Polite Quality
Love is like fever; it comes and goes without the will having any part of the process.
STENDHAL

Fever Love Process Willing
The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.
STENDHAL

God Ideas Religion
I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction,” said Mathilde. “It is the only thing which cannot be bought.
STENDHAL

Bought Death Reality Thinking
Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.
STENDHAL

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

Authority Distance Sight Subject
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.
STENDHAL

Moments Music Phrase Thinking Woman
A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.
STENDHAL

Appointment Happiness Wisdom Woman
Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.
STENDHAL

Art Escape Logic Science
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.
STENDHAL

Better Collection Future Hope Lost Love Passion Yourself
I see but one rule: to be clear.
STENDHAL

Clear Rule See
Love has always been the most important business in my life; I should say the only one.
STENDHAL

Business Important Life Love Myself Oneself
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
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

Because one has little fear of shocking vanity in Italy, people adopt an intimate tone very quickly and discuss personal things.

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Because one has little fear of shocking vanity in Italy, people adopt an intimate tone very quickly and discuss personal things.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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