black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.
STENDHAL

Born Degree Hope Love Small
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
The boredom of married life inevitable destroys love, when love has preceded marriage.
STENDHAL

Boredom Destroy Herself Marriage Youth
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
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
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
People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of an extreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.
STENDHAL

Anxiety Conscious Evidence Family Heart Intimacy Life People Polite Quality
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
A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.
STENDHAL

Carry Main Mirror Novel Road
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
One-half, the finest half, of life is hidden from the man who does not love with passion.
STENDHAL

Fine Hide Love Man Passion
She had caprices of a marvellous unexpectedness, and how is any one to imitate a caprice?
STENDHAL

Expectation Imitation Oneself
Friendship has its illusions no less than love.
STENDHAL

Friendship Illusion Love
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 worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
STENDHAL

Close Himself Life Prison Thinking Worst
Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.
STENDHAL

Happiness Love Power Source

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Stendhal Quotes