Signs cannot be represented, in a spy’s report, so damningly as words.
STENDHALA 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.
More Stendhal Quotes
-
-
A man who is half an idiot, but who keeps a sharp lookout and acts prudently all his life, often enjoys the pleasure of triumphing over men of more imagination than he.
STENDHAL -
Our true passions are selfish.
STENDHAL -
I used to think of deathlike I suppose soldiers think of it: it was a possible thing that I could well avoid by my skill.
STENDHAL -
Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us.
STENDHAL -
I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.
STENDHAL -
Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.
STENDHAL -
I have a bad memory for facts.
STENDHAL -
True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.
STENDHAL -
I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.
STENDHAL -
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 -
Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.
STENDHAL -
The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse – as a luxury befitting a young man.
STENDHAL -
Only great minds can afford a simple style.
STENDHAL -
Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.
STENDHAL -
Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.
STENDHAL -
After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.
STENDHAL -
Who knows whether it is not true that phosphorus and mind are not the same thing?
STENDHAL -
Life is very short, and it ought not to be spent crawling at the feet of miserable scoundrels.
STENDHAL -
The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.
STENDHAL -
What is really beautiful must always be true.
STENDHAL -
Life is too short, and the time we waste in yawning never can be regained.
STENDHAL -
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 -
I do not feel I have wisdom enough yet to love what is ugly.
STENDHAL -
If you want to be witty, work on your character and say what you think on every occasion.
STENDHAL -
Women are always eagerly on the lookout for any emotion.
STENDHAL -
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