A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.
– Stendhal
One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
– Stendhal
Women are always eagerly on the lookout for any emotion.
– Stendhal
True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.
– Stendhal
To describe happiness is to diminish it.
– Stendhal
To be loved at first sight, a man should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face.
– Stendhal
This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
– Stendhal
The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music.
– 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
Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.
– Stendhal
Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.
– Stendhal
Love has always been the most important business in my life, I should say the only one.
– Stendhal
Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.
– Stendhal
In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.
– Stendhal
If you think of paying court to the men in power, your eternal ruin is assured.
– Stendhal
If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.
– Stendhal
Friendship has its illusions no less than love.
– Stendhal
All religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
– Stendhal
A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.