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.
STENDHALIf you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured.
More Stendhal Quotes
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The sight of anything extremely beautiful, in nature or in art, brings back the memory of what one loves, with the speed of lightning.
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Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.
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Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.
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The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.
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To describe happiness is to diminish it.
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There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.
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Women prefer emotions to reasoning.
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Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.
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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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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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I see but one rule: to be clear.
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Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.
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After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.
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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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Because one has little fear of shocking vanity in Italy, people adopt an intimate tone very quickly and discuss personal things.
STENDHAL