Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism
in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black
, 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma
, 1839).
Born in Grenoble
, Isère
, he had an unhappy childhood in what he found to be stifling provincial France, disliking his "unimaginative" father and mourning his mother, who had died when he was young.
Je ne vois qu'une règle: être clair. Si je ne suis pas clair, tout mon monde est anéanti.
Le même esprit ne dure que deux cents ans.
Ce sera la noblesse de leur style qui, dans quarante ans, rendra illisibles nos écrivains de 1840.
L'amour a toujours été pour moi la plus grande des affaires ou plutôt la seule.
I call "crystallization" that action of the mind that discovers fresh perfections in its beloved at every turn of events.
The great majority of men, especially in France, both desire and possess a fashionable woman, much in the way one might own a fine horse—as a luxury befitting a young man.
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.
Beauty is nothing other than the promise of happiness.
A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.