Top 15 Stendhal Quotes

French writer (1783–1842)

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Marie-Henri Beyle (January 23, 1783 – March 23, 1842), more widely known as Stendhal, the most famous of his many pen-names, was a 19th century French writer.

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Pen Names: Henri Stendhal • Stendalis • Louis Alexandre Bombet • Anastase de Serpière • Don Flegme • William Crocodile • Dominique

Alternative Names: Henri Beyle • Marie Henri Beyle • Marie-Henri Beyle

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A good book is an event in my life.

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

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

I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.

A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.

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

Our true passions are selfish.

God's only excuse is that he does not exist

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

Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.

Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.

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.

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

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.

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