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The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.

Stendhal

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.
STENDHAL

Government Habit Music Passion Race Reason
Politics in the middle of things of the imagination is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert.
STENDHAL

Concert Imagination Politics
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
Women prefer emotions to reasoning.
STENDHAL

Emotion Preference Reason Woman
To find love in Paris you must go down among those classes where the absence of education and of vanity, and the struggle for bare necessities, have allowed more energy to survive.
STENDHAL

Absence Class Education Energy Family Love Necessary Struggle Survive
Who knows whether it is not true that phosphorus and mind are not the same thing?
STENDHAL

Different Known Mindset True
The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.
STENDHAL

Boredom Happiness Life
But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
STENDHAL

Happiness Myself Pleasure Time
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.
STENDHAL

Brain Fear Live Man Power Regain Religion Virtue Way Young
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
The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.
STENDHAL

God Ideas Religion
To seem sorrowful is not in good taste: You’re supposed to seem bored.
STENDHAL

Bored Goodness Sorrow Taste
One-half, the finest half, of life is hidden from the man who does not love with passion.
STENDHAL

Fine Hide Love Man Passion
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
Spring appears and we are once more children.
STENDHAL

Appearance Children Ourselves Spring
To describe happiness is to diminish it.
STENDHAL

Description Diminish Happiness
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.
STENDHAL

End Feeling Fools Grief Life Myself Success
Beauty is nothing but a promise of happiness.
STENDHAL

Beautiful Happiness Promise
True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.
STENDHAL

Comparison Death Love Pay Standard Thinking True
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
In matters of sentiment, the public has very crude ideas; and the most shocking fault of women is that they make the public the supreme judge of their lives.
STENDHAL

Emotion Ideas Judgement Life Mistake Public Shock
A good book is an event in my life.
STENDHAL

Book Goodness Life
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.
STENDHAL

Blurry Direct Impact Mindset Music Sadness Time Vision
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
At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.
STENDHAL

Authority Distance Sight Subject
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
Our true passions are selfish.
STENDHAL

One Liner Ourselves Passion Selfish

The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.

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The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.

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Popular Authors

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