black
grey
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One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

Stendhal

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
The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.
STENDHAL

Distance Imitation Time
The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.
STENDHAL

Fear Love Ourselves Proportion
All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
STENDHAL

Clever Fear Foundation Religion Smart
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
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.
STENDHAL

Cold Hungry Law Natural Need Strength Suffering
A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.
STENDHAL

Carry Main Mirror Novel Road
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
Politics in the middle of things of the imagination is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert.
STENDHAL

Concert Imagination Politics
This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
STENDHAL

Age Boredom Cure Curse Strange
Far less envy in America than in France.
STENDHAL

Feeling Jealous Place
Any man who talks about his love affairs thereby proves he is ignorant of love and is moved only by vanity.
STENDHAL

Ignorance Love Man Move Talk Vanity
When intimacy followed love in Italy there were no longer any vain pretensions between two lovers.
STENDHAL

Act Follow Intimate Love
The English are, I think the most obtuse and barbarous people in the world
STENDHAL

Myself Nature People Thinking World
Because one has little fear of shocking vanity in Italy, people adopt an intimate tone very quickly and discuss personal things.
STENDHAL

Fear Personal Quick Shock Thing
Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.
STENDHAL

Birth Man Pride Rich Surround Wound Young

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

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One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

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Popular Authors

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