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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.

Stendhal

Man is not free to refuse to do the thing which gives him more pleasure than any other conceivable action.
STENDHAL

Action Freedom Man Pleasure Refusal
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.
STENDHAL

Death Fools Grief Man Ordinary Personage Powerful Procedure
Love is a well from which we can drink only as much as we have put in, and the stars that shine from it are only our eyes looking in.
STENDHAL

Drink Eyes Love Ourselves Shine Stardom
The English are, I think the most obtuse and barbarous people in the world
STENDHAL

Myself Nature People Thinking World
It is with blows dealt by public contempt that a husband kills his wife in the nineteenth century; it is by shutting the doors ofall the drawing-rooms in her face.
STENDHAL

Draw Face Husband Kill Public Room Wife
If you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured.
STENDHAL

Assurance Court Forever Man Pay Power Ruin Thinking
If you want to be witty, work on your character and say what you think on every occasion.
STENDHAL

Character Occasion Thinking Work Yourself
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
To be loved at first sight, a man should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face.
STENDHAL

Face Himself Love Pity Respect Sight
It is from cowardice and not from want of enlightenment that we do not read in our own hearts.
STENDHAL

Coward Enlightenment Heart Ourselves Reading
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
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
But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
STENDHAL

Happiness Myself Pleasure Time
The sight of anything extremely beautiful, in nature or in art, brings back the memory of what one loves, with the speed of lightning.
STENDHAL

Beautiful Light Love Sight Speed
One-half, the finest half, of life is hidden from the man who does not love with passion.
STENDHAL

Fine Hide Love Man Passion
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.
STENDHAL

Feeling Impression Love Man Passion Woman

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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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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