Stendhal Quotes

Que ne sait-il choisir ses gens? La marche ordinaire du XIXe siècle est que, quand un être puissant et noble rencontre un homme de cœur, il le tue, l'exile, l'emprisonne ou l'humilie tellement, que l'autre a la sottise d'en mourir de douleur.

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

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.

When one has just seen the woman one loves, the sight of every other woman damages the vision and physically hurts the eyes;

Les Russes copient les moeurs françaises, mais toujours à cinquante ans de distance.

What is the use of a love that makes one yawn? One might as well take to religion.

A good book is an event in my life.

Punish me for my atrocious pride,” she said to him, squeezing him in her arms as though to strangle him; “you are my master, I am your slave, I must beg pardon upon my knees for having sought to rebel.” She slipped from his embrace to fall at his feet. “Yes, you are my master,” she said again, intoxicated with love and joy; “reign over me for ever, punish your slave severely when she seeks to rebel.

Le même esprit ne dure que deux cents ans.

A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth!

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.

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.

Coming back here often (on Lake Como) is like a drop of poison; it makes you want to never leave.

A man may meet a woman and be shocked by her ugliness. Soon, if she is natural and unaffected, her expression makes him overlook the faults of her features. He begins to find her charming, it enters his head that she might be loved, and a week later he is living in hope. The following week he has been snubbed into despair, and the week afterwards he has gone mad. (Chapter 17)

Un des moments les plus pénibles de sa vie était celui où, chaque matin, en s'éveillant, il s'apprenait son malheur.