Stendhal Quotes

Une femme de quarante ans n'est plus quelque chose que pour les hommes qui l'ont aimée dans sa jeunesse!

Je ne suis plus si content de cette bonne compagnie par excellence, que j'ai tant aimée. Il me semble que sous des mots adroits elle proscrit toute énergie, toute originalité. Si l'on n'est copie, elle vous accuse de mauvaises manières. Et puis la bonne compagnie usurpe. Elle avait autrefois le privilège de juger de ce qui est bien; mais depuis qu'elle se croit attaquée, elle condamne, non plus ce qui est grossier et désagréable sans compensation, mais ce qu'elle croit nuisible à ses intérêts.

Cette manie des mères de ce siècle, d'être constamment à la chasse au mari.

Ce n'est pas tant d'être riche qui fait le bonheur, c'est de le devenir.

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.

Cette religion ôte le courage de penser aux choses inaccoutumées, et défend surtout lexamen personnel, comme le plus énorme des péchés; c'est un pas vers le protestantisme.

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

One day they asked Mme Montcortin what love is, she answered, "It's a nasty, dirty thing, of which chambermaids are sometimes accused, and, when they're convinced, they are chased."

What is really beautiful must always be true.

Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness.

Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur.

"Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur."

("Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness.")

[Journal entry, 10 December 1801]

Never had he found himself so close to those terrible weapons of feminine artillery.

I forgot to illustrate this salon. Sir Walter Scott, and his imitators, would have started with that, but for me, I abhor material description. The trouble of making them prevents me from writing novels.

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 succeeded.
It is shewing your inferiority. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.