Ability Quote by Stendhal

At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.

— Stendhal

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

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

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

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

“The footman burst in, announcing, 'Monsieur le Duc de ---.' 'Hold your tongue, you fool,' said the Duke as he entered the room. He…

— Stendhal

Signs cannot be represented, in a spy's report, so damningly as words.

— Stendhal

“If you think of paying court to those in power, your eternal ruin is assured.”

— Stendhal

Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.

— Stendhal

On a cold winter morning a cigar fortifies the soul.

— Stendhal

A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth.

— Stendhal

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