Nothing is so hideous as an obsolete fashion.
STENDHALA novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader’s soul.
More Stendhal Quotes
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All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
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A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.
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Any man who talks about his love affairs thereby proves he is ignorant of love and is moved only by vanity.
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She had caprices of a marvellous unexpectedness, and how is any one to imitate a caprice?
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I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.
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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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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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It is difficult to escape from the prevailing disease of one’s generation.
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The English are, I think the most obtuse and barbarous people in the world
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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.
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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 difference breeds hatred.
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I call “crystallization” that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.
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Beauty is nothing but a promise of happiness.
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A good book is an event in my life.
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Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.
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Perhaps men who cannot love passionately are those who feel the effect of beauty most keenly; at any rate this is the strongest impression women can make on them.
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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.
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The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.
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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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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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Sometimes the impact of Mozart’s music is so immediate that the vision in the mind remains blurred and incomplete, while the soul seems to be directly invaded, drenched in wave upon wave of melancholy.
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At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.
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There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.
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But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
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I have a bad memory for facts.
STENDHAL