black
grey
blue
red
brown
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It is better to have a prosaic husband and to take a romantic lover.

Stendhal

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

Authority Distance Sight Subject
Signs cannot be represented, in a spy’s report, so damningly as words.
STENDHAL

Report Representation Word
Never had he found himself so close to those terrible weapons of feminine artillery.
STENDHAL

Feminine Himself Terrible Weapon
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 more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music.
STENDHAL

Government Habit Music Passion Race Reason
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
When you want to court a woman, court her sister first
STENDHAL

Court Herself Sister Woman Yourself
Women are always eagerly on the lookout for any emotion.
STENDHAL

Emotion Search Woman
It is not enough for a landscape to be interesting in itself. Eventually there must be a moral and historic interest.
STENDHAL

Enough History Interest Moral
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
A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.
STENDHAL

Carry Main Mirror Novel Road
It is better to have a prosaic husband and to take a romantic lover.
STENDHAL

Better Choice Husband Lover Romantic
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
Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the youth of France! Who is to take his place?
STENDHAL

God Help Man Place Youth
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
Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us.
STENDHAL

Life Ourselves Perspective Wrong

It is better to have a prosaic husband and to take a romantic lover.

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It is better to have a prosaic husband and to take a romantic lover.

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