The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.
STENDHALBeauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.
More Stendhal Quotes
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Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.
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A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader’s soul.
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Love has always been the most important business in my life; I should say the only one.
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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.
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Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.
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In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.
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The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
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Mathematics allows for no hypocrisy and no vagueness.
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The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.
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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.
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The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.
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I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction,” said Mathilde. “It is the only thing which cannot be bought.
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Because one has little fear of shocking vanity in Italy, people adopt an intimate tone very quickly and discuss personal things.
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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.
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People happy in love have an air of intensity.
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This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregious of sins. It is one step away from protestantism.
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Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.
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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.
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When you want to court a woman, court her sister first
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On a cold winter morning a cigar fortifies the soul.
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The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly.
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Our true passions are selfish.
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After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.
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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.
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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.
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Nothing is so hideous as an obsolete fashion.
STENDHAL