The ordinary procedure of the nineteenth century is that when a powerful and noble personage encounters a man of feeling, he kills, exiles, imprisons or so humiliates him that the other, like a fool, dies of grief.
STENDHALThe worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
More Stendhal Quotes
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It is not enough for a landscape to be interesting in itself. Eventually there must be a moral and historic interest.
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After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.
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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.
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Indeed, man has two different beings inside him. What devil thought of that malicious touch?
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Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the youth of France! Who is to take his place?
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I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
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Our true passions are selfish.
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The Russians imitate French ways, but always at a distance of fifty years.
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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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When you want to court a woman, court her sister first
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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 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.
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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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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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The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.
STENDHAL