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
expression law suffering
There is no such thing as "natural law": this expression is nothing but old nonsense... Prior to laws, what is natural is only the strength of the lion, or the need of the creature suffering from hunger or cold; in short, need.
feet miserable life-is
Life is very short, and it ought not to be spent crawling at the feet of miserable scoundrels.
world clear ifs
I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.
imagination pistols shots
Politics in the middle of things of the imagination is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert.
style vision
There are as many styles of beauty as there are visions of happiness.
hands want-something air
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. It is shewing your inferiority. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.
leadership art men
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.
beauty beautiful being-true
What is really beautiful must always be true.
friendship illusion
Friendship has its illusions no less than love.
husband romantic-love lovers
It is better to have a prosaic husband and to take a romantic lover.
promise
Beauty is nothing but a promise of happiness.
mind phosphorus knows
Who knows whether it is not true that phosphorus and mind are not the same thing?
avarice-greed morality kind
Prudery is a kind of avarice, the worst of all.
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.