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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

One-half, the finest half, of life is hidden from the man who does not love with passion.
STENDHAL

Fine Hide Love Man Passion
The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.
STENDHAL

God Ideas Religion
I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.
STENDHAL

Crumble Myself Rule See World
But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
STENDHAL

Happiness Myself Pleasure Time
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
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
Nothing is so hideous as an obsolete fashion.
STENDHAL

Fashion Hide
The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.
STENDHAL

Fear Love Ourselves Proportion
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

Animal Desire Fashion Greatness Luxury Majority Man Possession Woman Young
I call “crystallization” that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.
STENDHAL

Action Crystal Discover Event Mindset
A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.
STENDHAL

Carry Main Mirror Novel Road
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
Life is very short, and it ought not to be spent crawling at the feet of miserable scoundrels.
STENDHAL

Life Misery Short Time
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
I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.
STENDHAL

Advice Friendship Mad Myself Pay
Prudery is a kind of avarice, the worst of all.
STENDHAL

Kind Vice Worst

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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