Stendhal

Society being divided in strips like bamboo, the great business of a man is to ascend to the class superior to his own, and all the effort of this class is to prevent him from ascending.

Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the youth of France! Who is to take his place?

What woman alive today would not be horrified to touch the head of her decapitated lover?’ Madame

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

Με τον έρωτα αισθάνομαι πως δυο βήματα από μένα υπάρχει μια απέραντη και πέρα απ' όλες τις προσδοκίες μου ευτυχία, που εξαρτάται μόνο από μια λέξη, από ένα χαμόγελο.

Old age is nothing but the absence of madness, the loss of illusion and passion.

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.

Mathilde ura din tot sufletul lipsa de caracter; acesta era singurul cusur de care îi învinuia pe frumoşii tineri
din preajma.

On the other hand in America, in the Republic, one has to spend the whole weary day paying serious court to the shopkeepers in the street, and must become as stupid as they are; and there, one has no Opera.

Everything is noble and delicate (on Lake Como), everything speaks of love, nothing recalls the ugliness of civilization. The villages located halfway up the coast are hidden by trees, and above the tops of the trees rises the graceful architecture of their slender bell towers. If some small field, fifty paces wide, occasionally interrupts the "bouquets" of chestnut and wild cherry trees, the satisfied eye sees plants growing happier and more vigorous than elsewhere. Beyond these hills, whose peaks offer hermitages that we would all like to inhabit, the amazed eye discovers the peaks of the Alps, always covered with snow, and their sublime austerity reminds him of the misfortunes of life, and this increases the voluptuousness. of the present hour. The imagination is moved by the distant sound of the bell of some tiny village hidden under the trees; and the sounds carried on the waters, which soften them, take on a color of sweet melancholy and resignation, and seem to say to man: Life is fleeing, so do not show yourself so reluctant towards the happiness that presents itself, hurry to enjoy. The language of these enchanting places, which have no equal in the world, restored her sixteen-year-old heart to the Countess.

Je ne vois que las condamnation a mort qui distingue un homme, pensa Mathilde, c'est la seule chose qui ne s'achete pas.
Ah! c'est un bon mot que je viens de me dire! quel dommage qu'il ne soit pas venu de facon a m'en faire honneur. Mathilde avait trop de gout pour amener dans la conversation un bon mot fait d'avance, mais elle avait aussie trop de vanite pour ne pas etre enchantee d'elle-meme.

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.

Palabras dichas sin intención, encuentros que son obra de la casualidad, los transforma en pruebas evidentes el hombre de imaginación, si brilla una chispa de fuego en su corazón.

On est considéré, à Paris, à cause de sa voiture et non à cause de sa vertu.

The highest rational achievement of the finest intellects consists in grasping that certain matters lie beyond their powers to grasp.