Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels Le Rouge et le Noirand La Chartreuse de Parme, he is highly regarded for the acute analysis of his characters' psychology and considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth23 January 1783
CountryFrance
thinking skills soldier
I used to think of deathlike I suppose soldiers think of it: it was a possible thing that I could well avoid by my skill.
lying men mirrors
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.
brain enthusiasm structure
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.
character men tears
For the future, I shall rely only upon those elements of my character which I have tested. Who would ever have said that I should find pleasure in shedding tears? That I should love the man who proves to me that I am nothing more than a fool?
america peer-pressure france
The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.
mind her-beauty
I love her beauty, but I fear her mind.
passion race music-love
The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music.
distance power sight
At a distance, we cannot conceive of the authority of a despot who knows all his subjects on sight.
husband revenge blow
It is with blows dealt by public contempt that a husband kills his wife in the nineteenth century; it is by shutting the doors ofall the drawing-rooms in her face.
generations disease prevailing
It is difficult to escape from the prevailing disease of one's generation.
america envy france
Far less envy in America than in France, and far less wit.
deeds stuff doe
Every great action is extreme when it is undertaken. Only after it has been accomplished does it seem possible to those creatures of more common stuff.
friendship illusion
Friendship has its illusions no less than love.
boredom unhappiness
The only unhappiness is a life of boredom.