Stendhal Quotes

For the future, I shall rely only upon those elements of my character which I have tested. Who would ever have said that I should find pleasure in shedding tears? That I should love the man who proves to me that I am nothing more than a fool?

~ Stendhal

There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.

~ Stendhal

A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.

~ Stendhal

A good book is an event in my life.

~ Stendhal

Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.

~ Stendhal

I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.

~ Stendhal

Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless, than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it criticizes itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.

~ Stendhal

Indeed, man has two different beings inside him. What devil thought of that malicious touch?

~ Stendhal

Mathilde made an effort to use the more intimate form; she was evidently more attentive to this unusual way of speaking than to what she was saying. This use of the singular form, stripped of the tone of affection, ceased, after a moment, to afford Julien any pleasure, he was astonished at the absence of happiness; finally, in order to feel it, he had recourse to his reason. He saw himself highly esteemed by this girl who was so proud, and never bestowed unrestricted praise; by this line of reasoning he arrived at a gratification of his self-esteem.

~ Stendhal

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

An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a loaded pistol on the table.

~ Stendhal

A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succ

~ Stendhal

Has he written to you?''He writes frequently.''Shew me his letters this instant, I order you'; and M. de Renal added six feet to his stature.

~ Stendhal

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

Julien felt himself to be strong and resolute like a man who sees clearly into his own heart.

~ Stendhal

To write a book is to risk being shot at in public.

~ Stendhal

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

~ Stendhal

Chélan had acted as imprudently for Julien as he had for himself. He had given him the habit of reasoning correctly, and of not being put off by empty words, but he had neglected to tell him that this habit was a crime in the person of no importance, since every piece of logical reasoning is offensive.

~ Stendhal

After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.

~ Stendhal

In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural.

~ Stendhal

Without patience, without absence of anger, no one can be called a politician.

~ Stendhal

A novel is a mirror carried along a main road.

~ Stendhal

The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.

~ Stendhal

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

~ Stendhal

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

~ Stendhal

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

~ Stendhal

In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.

~ Stendhal

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

People happy in love have an air of intensity.

~ Stendhal

If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.

~ Stendhal

Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.

~ Stendhal

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

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

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

~ Stendhal

Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.

~ Stendhal

The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.

~ Stendhal

All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.

~ Stendhal

Only great minds can afford a simple style.

~ Stendhal

The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.

~ Stendhal

Friendship has its illusions no less than love.

~ Stendhal