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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

Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.
STENDHAL

Beautiful Happiness Promise
In matters of sentiment, the public has very crude ideas; and the most shocking fault of women is that they make the public the supreme judge of their lives.
STENDHAL

Emotion Ideas Judgement Life Mistake Public Shock
Women prefer emotions to reasoning.
STENDHAL

Emotion Preference Reason Woman
God’s only excuse is that he does not exist.
STENDHAL

Excuse Existence God Himself
Signs cannot be represented, in a spy’s report, so damningly as words.
STENDHAL

Report Representation Word
Prudery is a kind of avarice, the worst of all.
STENDHAL

Kind Vice Worst
On a cold winter morning a cigar fortifies the soul.
STENDHAL

Hard Soul Winter
Why not make an end of it all? My life is a succession of griefs and bitter feelings. What is death? A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.
STENDHAL

End Feeling Fools Grief Life Myself Success
The boredom of married life inevitable destroys love, when love has preceded marriage.
STENDHAL

Boredom Destroy Herself Marriage Youth
Love is like a fever which comes and goes quite independently of the will. There are no age limits for love.
STENDHAL

Age Independent Love Quite Willing
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
Love is like fever; it comes and goes without the will having any part of the process.
STENDHAL

Fever Love Process Willing
People happy in love have an air of intensity.
STENDHAL

Happiness Intensity Love People
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
A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.
STENDHAL

Appointment Happiness Wisdom Woman
Sometimes the impact of Mozart’s music is so immediate that the vision in the mind remains blurred and incomplete, while the soul seems to be directly invaded, drenched in wave upon wave of melancholy.
STENDHAL

Blurry Direct Impact Mindset Music Sadness Time Vision
Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.
STENDHAL

Desert Faith Fool Happiness Life
Love is a well from which we can drink only as much as we have put in, and the stars that shine from it are only our eyes looking in.
STENDHAL

Drink Eyes Love Ourselves Shine Stardom
Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.
STENDHAL

Career Divine Offend Pain Vulgur
The first virtue of a young man today – that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers – is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.
STENDHAL

Brain Fear Live Man Power Regain Religion Virtue Way Young
Politics in the middle of things of the imagination is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert.
STENDHAL

Concert Imagination Politics
A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times over for her lover, but will break with him for ever over a question of pride.
STENDHAL

Break Character Generosity Life Pride Question Sacrifice Woman
The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.
STENDHAL

Fear Love Ourselves Proportion
Life is too short, and the time we waste in yawning never can be regained.
STENDHAL

Life Regain Short Wasted Time
Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.
STENDHAL

Description Happiness Spoil
This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
STENDHAL

Age Boredom Cure Curse Strange
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

Eyes Highway Mirror Novel Reflection Road

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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