223 Quotes by Stendhal

The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.

It's like a duel, he said laughing to himself — my master-at-arms says there's a parry to every thrust, but that the good Lord, who desires an end, so orders it that one of the two forgets to parry.

la finesse du paysan l'emporta sur la finesse de l'homme riche, qui n'en a pas besoin pour vivre(partie 1, ch. 5)

The great drawback of being witty is that you have to keep your eyes fixed on the semi-idiots around you, and absorb their worthless sensations.

There are no longer any real passions in the nineteenth century: that's why one is so bored in France. People commit acts of the greatest cruelty, but without any feeling of cruelty.

What is this self, this I that I am? I know not. One fine day, I awoke to find myself upon this earth; I discovered my fate to be forever linked with a certain body, character, estate. Am I to spend all my days, then, ineffectually seeking to alter that which cannot be altered, and so, meanwhile, forget to live? Rather do I propose to accept myself as I am, humbly submitting to my own defects.

Oh, if there were only a true religion. Fool that I am, I see a Gothic cathedral and venerable stained-glass windows, and my weak heart conjures up the priest to fit the scene. My soul would understand him, my soul has need of him. I only find a nincompoop with dirty hair.

Faith, I am no such fool; everyone for himself in this desert of selfishness which is called life.

aşk insanları birbirine eşitler, sakın denemeyin.