A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader's soul. — Stendhal Copy Share Image
Conversationis like the table of contents of a dull book… All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayedin it. Listen… — Stendhal Copy Share Image
A novel is a mirror which passes over a highway. Sometimes it reflects to your eyes the blue of the skies, at… — Stendhal Copy Share Image
“Since the time of Voltaire and two-chamber Government, which is at bottom simply distrust and personal self-examination, and gives the popular mind… — Stendhal Copy Share Image
Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure… — Stendhal Copy Share Image
“Here are my politics: I love music and painting; a good book is an event for me; I’m going on forty-four. How… — Stendhal Copy Share Image
“In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the… — Stendhal Copy Share Image
At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight. — Stendhal Copy Share
The pleasures and the cares of the luckiest ambition, even of limitless power, are nothing next to the intimate happiness that tenderness and love… — Stendhal Copy Share
The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense… — Stendhal Copy Share
The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United… — Stendhal Copy Share
In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for… — Stendhal Copy Share
“The footman burst in, announcing, 'Monsieur le Duc de ---.' 'Hold your tongue, you fool,' said the Duke as he entered the room. He… — Stendhal Copy Share
“If you think of paying court to those in power, your eternal ruin is assured.” — Stendhal Copy Share
Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar. — Stendhal Copy Share
A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth. — Stendhal Copy Share
Perhaps men who cannot love passionately are those who feel the effect of beauty most keenly; at any rate this is the strongest impression… — Stendhal Copy Share
Who knows whether it is not true that phosphorus and mind are not the same thing? — Stendhal Copy Share
“Could anything possibly be more humorous than believing in the depth or in the depravity of the Parisian character?” — Stendhal Copy Share
