“When intimacy followed love in Italy there were no longer any vain pretensions between two lovers.”
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Famous Stendhal Quotes
Source: The Red and the Black: World Classics
“When a man leaves his mistress, he runs the risk of being betrayed two or three times daily.”
Source: The Red and the Black: World Classics
“Napoleon was indeed the man sent by God to help the youth of France! Who is to take his place?”
Source: The Red and the Black
“It is from cowardice and not from want of enlightenment that we do not read in our own hearts.”
Source: Amarance
“Wounded pride can take a rich young man far who is surrounded by flatterers since birth.”
Source: The Red and the Black
“It is difficult to escape from the prevailing disease of one's generation.”
Source: Amarance
“Women prefer emotions to reasoning.”
Source: On Love
“One-half, the finest half, of life is hidden from the man who does not love with passion.”
“Love is like fever; it comes and goes without the will having any part of the process.”
Source: On Love
“To seem sorrowful is not in good taste: You're supposed to seem bored.”
Source: Memoirs of a tourist [by] Stendhal [pseud.] Translated by Allan Seager: With illus. by Roger Barr
“Life is very short, and it ought not to be spent crawling at the feet of miserable scoundrels.”
Source: Armance
“I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.”
Source: The Charterhouse of Parma
“If you want to be witty, work on your character and say what you think on every occasion.”
Source: The private diaries of Stendhal [pseud.]
“A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.”
Source: On Love
“If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.”
“Life is too short, and the time we waste in yawning never can be regained.”
“The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.”
“Only great minds can afford a simple style.”
Source: On Love
“All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.”
“This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.”
Source: Stendhal's The Red and the Black
“Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.”
Source: On Love
“The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.”
Source: On Love
Source: On Love
“Friendship has its illusions no less than love.”
Source: Armance
“Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.”
Source: The private diaries of Stendhal [pseud.]
Source: Love