Stendhal Art Quotations

A strange effect of marriage, such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of married life inevitably destroys love, when love has preceded marriage. And yet, as a philosopher has observed, it speedily brings about, among people who are rich enough not to have to work, an intense boredom with all quiet forms of enjoyment. And it is only dried up hearts, among women, that it does not predispose to love.

Jean Jacques Rousseauis nothing but a fool in my eyes when he takes it upon himself to criticise society; he did not understand it, and approached it with the heart of an upstart flunkey.... For all his preaching a Republic and the overthrow of monarchical titles, the upstart is mad with joy if a Duke alters the course of his after-dinner stroll to accompany one of his friends.

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.

The sight of anything extremely beautiful, in nature or in art, brings back the memory of what one loves, with the speed of lightning.

People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of anextreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.

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

The French are the wittiest, the most charming, and up to the present, at all events, the least musical race on Earth.

It is from cowardice and not from want of enlightenment that we do not read in our own hearts.

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.

People happy in love have an air of intensity.

If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.