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A novel is a mirror which passes over a highway. Sometimes it reflects to your eyes the blue of the skies, at others the churned-up mud of the road.

Stendhal

But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
STENDHAL

Happiness Myself Pleasure Time
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

Opinion Public Small Unity
An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a loaded pistol on the table.
STENDHAL

Himself Intimate Live Load Play Relate Travel Weapon
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
This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
STENDHAL

Age Boredom Cure Curse Strange
Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.
STENDHAL

Description Happiness Spoil
The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.
STENDHAL

Distance Imitation Time
All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
STENDHAL

Clever Fear Foundation Religion Smart
A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.
STENDHAL

Born Degree Hope Love Small
The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.
STENDHAL

Fear Love Ourselves Proportion
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
If you don’t love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.
STENDHAL

Love Matter Myself Ourselves
Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.
STENDHAL

Hypocrisy Mathematics Vague
If you want to be witty, work on your character and say what you think on every occasion.
STENDHAL

Character Occasion Thinking Work Yourself
I have a bad memory for facts.
STENDHAL

Bad Fact Memories Myself
At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.
STENDHAL

Authority Distance Sight Subject

A novel is a mirror which passes over a highway. Sometimes it reflects to your eyes the blue of the skies, at others the churned-up mud of the road.

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A novel is a mirror which passes over a highway. Sometimes it reflects to your eyes the blue of the skies, at others the churned-up mud of the road.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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