Stendhal Quotes

Julien cherchait a ne pas s'exagerer cette cinguliere amitie. Il la comparait lui-meme a un commerce arme. Chaque jour en se retrouvant, avant de reprendre le tonpreque intime de la veille, on se demandait presque: Serons-nous aujourd'hui amis ou ennemis?

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.

— Mais c'est de l'égotisme abominable que tous ces détails ! — Sans doute, et qu'est ce livre, autre chose qu'un abominable égotisme ! [...] Si ce livre est ennuyeux, au bout de deux ans il enveloppera le beurre chez l'épicier ; s'il n'ennuie pas, on verra que l'égotisme, mais sincère, est une façon de peindre ce cœur humain dans la connaissance duquel nous avons fait des pas de géant depuis 1721, époque des Lettres persanes de ce grand homme que j'ai tant étudié : Montesquieu.

I call "crystallization" that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.

Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.

Il [le jeune pianiste] avait appris à admirer tel morceau, la première qualité était toujours, dans un son, d'être juste, dans une phrase, d'être correcte. À mes yeux, la première qualité, de bien loin, est d'être expressif.

Un bon livre est un événement pour moi.

"Аз живях достатъчно, за да видя, че различието ражда омразата."
"Тежък ще е твоят жизнен път. В тебе аз виждам нещо, което обижда простолюдието. Завистта и Клеветата ще те преследват. Където и да те запрати провидението, другарите ти няма да могат да те гледат без омраза; и ако се преструват, че те обичат, то ще е само, за да те погубят по- сигурно."

In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.

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.

La société étant divisée par bandes comme un bambou, la grande affaire d'un homme est de monter dans la classe supérieure à la sienne, et tout l'effort de cette classe est de l'empêcher de monter.

I am deeply convinced that the only antidote that can make the reader forget the eternal I's that the author will write is a perfect sincerity.

At La Scala it is customary to take no more than twenty minutes for those little visits one pays to boxes.

It seems that my destiny is to die dreaming.

Je ne veux désormais collectionner que les moments de bonheur.