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Far less envy in America than in France.

Stendhal

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
Politics in the middle of things of the imagination is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert.
STENDHAL

Concert Imagination Politics
If you don’t love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.
STENDHAL

Love Matter Myself Ourselves
Love has always been the most important business in my life; I should say the only one.
STENDHAL

Business Important Life Love Myself Oneself
Every great action is extreme when it is undertaken. Only after it has been accomplished does it seem possible to those creatures of more common stuff.
STENDHAL

Accomplishment Creature Extreme Greatness Possible
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
She had caprices of a marvellous unexpectedness, and how is any one to imitate a caprice?
STENDHAL

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

Ability History Invention Qualification
It is with blows dealt by public contempt that a husband kills his wife in the nineteenth century; it is by shutting the doors ofall the drawing-rooms in her face.
STENDHAL

Draw Face Husband Kill Public Room Wife
In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.
STENDHAL

Call Choice Fortune Way World
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
The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.
STENDHAL

God Ideas Religion
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

Enjoyment Himself Idiot Imagination Life Man Sharp
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 from cowardice and not from want of enlightenment that we do not read in our own hearts.
STENDHAL

Coward Enlightenment Heart Ourselves Reading
A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader’s soul.
STENDHAL

Novel Production Reading Soul Sound Violin

Far less envy in America than in France.

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Far less envy in America than in France.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Stendhal Quotes