Quotes by Stendhal

About Stendhal:

Marie-Henri Beyle is highly regarded for the acute analysis of his characters' psychology and considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

Stendhal

This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.

Stendhal

The man of genius is he and he alone who finds such joy in his art that he will work at it come hell or high water.

Stendhal

Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.

Stendhal

Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur." [Journal entry, 10 December 1801]

Stendhal

Since the time of and two-chamber Government, which is at bottom simply distrust and personal self-examination, and gives the popular mind that bad habit of being suspicious, the Church of France seems to have realised that books are its real enemies...

Stendhal

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...

Stendhal

A good book is an event in my life.

Stendhal

A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succeeded. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who h...

Stendhal

Monfleury est en vente, je perds cinquante mille francs, s'il le faut, mais je suis tout joyeux, je quitte cet enfer d'hypocrisie et de tracasseries. Je vais chercher la solitude et la paix champêtre au seul lieu où elles existent en France, dans u...

Stendhal

Julien felt himself to be strong and resolute like a man who sees clearly into his own heart.

Stendhal

After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.

Stendhal

Has he written to you?' 'He writes frequently.' 'Shew me his letters this instant, I order you'; and M. de Renal added six feet to his stature.

Stendhal

I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought.

Stendhal

I will never demean myself to speak about my courage," said Julien, coldly, "it would be mean to do so. Let the world judge by the facts.

Stendhal

The ordinary procedure of the nineteenth century is that when a powerful and noble personage encounters a man of feeling, he kills, exiles, imprisons or so humiliates him that the other, like a fool, dies of grief.

Stendhal

Certaines choses que Napoléon dit des femmes, plusieurs discussiions sur le mérite des romans à la mode sous son règne lui donnèrent alors, pour la première fois, quelques idées que tout autre jeune home de son age aurait eues depuis longtemps...

Stendhal

I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.

Stendhal

Mathilde made an effort to use the more intimate form; she was evidently more attentive to this unusual way of speaking than to what she was saying. This use of the singular form, stripped of the tone of affection, ceased, after a moment, to afford J...

Stendhal

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...

Stendhal

Author Bio

  • NameStendhal
  • DescriptionFrench writer
  • AliasesMarie-Henri Beyle
  • BornJanuary 23, 1783
  • DiedMarch 23, 1842
  • CountryFrance
  • ProfessionWriter; Autobiographer