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
book ignorance thinking
Conversationis like the table of contents of a dull book.... All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly displayedin it. Listen to it for three minutes, and you ask yourself which is more striking, the emphasis of the speaker or his shocking ignorance.
thinking people insulting
The English are, I think the most obtuse and barbarous people in the world
passion thinking very-true
Every true passion thinks only of itself.
men thinking ruins
If you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured.
music sweet thinking
I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase.
thinking unusual-things self
This religion takes away the courage of thinking of unusual things and prohibits self-examination above all as the most egregiousof sins.... It is one step away from protestantism.
real thinking distinction
I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought.
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.
imitate marvelous
She had caprices of a marvelous unexpectedness, and how is any one to imitate a caprice?
logical-reasoning pieces offensive
Chélan had acted as imprudently for Julien as he had for himself. He had given him the habit of reasoning correctly, and of not being put off by empty words, but he had neglected to tell him that this habit was a crime in the person of no importance, since every piece of logical reasoning is offensive.
wisdom ugly enough
I do not feel I have wisdom enough yet to love what is ugly.
ambition men years
The first virtue of a young man today - that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers - is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains.
marriage heart history
A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love.
success calling world
In our calling, we have to choose; we must make our fortune either in this world or in the next, there is no middle way.