Oh, if there were only a true religion. Fool that I am, I see a Gothic cathedral and venerable stained-glass windows, and my weak heart conjures up t… - Stendhal

"But all these details are but abominable egotism!"
"No doubt, and what is this book, but an abominable egotism!" [...] If this book be boring, in two years it shall wrap butter at the grocer's; if it bore not, one shall see that egotism, but a sincere one, is a way of painting the human heart on the knowledge of which we have made a giant's steps since 1721, time of the Persian Letters of this man I've studied so much—Montesquieu.

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

A creature who is half an idiot, but who keeps a sharp look-out, and acts prudently all his life, often enjoys the pleasure of triumphing over men of imagination.