The Red and the Black

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(“A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader’s soul,” Stendhal like to remind his audience.) — 130

The horror of eating with the servants was not something natural to Julien; to make his fortune he would have done other things equally unpalatable. He had learned his repugnance from Rousseau’s Confessions, which was the only book that in any way helped him imagine the great world. That, plus a collection of Grand Army bulletins and Memories of Napoleon on Saint-Helena, completed his personal Koran. — 536

Together with his fiery soul, Julien possessed one of those stunning memories so often linked to stupidity. — 540

Coarseness and the most brutal insensitivity to everything not connected with money or the power of being decorated with medals; blind hatred for every argument opposing their views—these seemed to her natural attributes of the male sex, exactly like wearing boots or felt hats. — 822

He found there, all combined, happiness, ecstasy and, in moments of discouragement, consolation. — 1060

I worry that eight years spent earning my bread might deprive me of the sublime energy which makes extraordinary things possible.” — 1431

A novel: It’s a mirror you take for a walk down the road. —SAINT-RÉAL — 1433

“What’s the point to this endless scrutiny of the Holy Scriptures,” thought Father Pirard, “if it isn’t an inquiry into a person’s conscience? In other words, the most ghastly Protestantism. — 3036

You’ve clearly gotten used to laughing faces, which are true displays of falsity and lies. Truth is austere, sir. — 3050

How important it is, keeping your conscience on watch for the weakness of too much sensitivity to the world’s empty charms. — 3051

Father Chélan had been as careless of Julien’s welfare as he had been of his own. Having trained him to think clearly, — 3286

and not let himself settle for empty verbiage, he’d neglected to explain that, for someone not well respected, this habit is criminal, for in any case logical thinking is always offensive. — 3287

As a harsh Jansenist, Father Pirard’s fixed principle was: Do you think someone is deserving? Then put obstacles between him and everything he desires, everything he tries to do. If he is truly deserving, he’ll surely know how to overcome or transform those obstacles. — 3444

“was only grand on the field of battle and when he put our finances on a sound footing, in 1802. What did it all mean, after that? With his fancy chamberlains, — 3995

Malmaison, — 4024

At the Père Lachaise Cemetery, a most obliging man, and even more assertively a liberal, offered to show Julien the tomb of Marshall Ney, Napoleon’s general, to whom wise politicians have denied an epitaph. But after leaving this liberal gentleman, who embraced him tightly, tears in his eyes, Julien no longer had his watch. — 4152

Rossini’s Count Ory.” — 4638

“That’s life’s only reality. A man can hardly save my life each and every day, or be perpetually giving me gifts of a million francs. But if I had old Rivarol here, every day, right here next to my couch, he’d take away an hour of boredom and pain. — 4675

Philip Vane, — 4732

United States of South America — 4919

Now alone in the garden: “There’s the huge advantage they have over us,” Julien told himself. “Their ancestors’ history lifts them above vulgar feelings, and they don’t always have to focus on where their bread is coming from! What misery!” he added, bitterly. “I’m not worthy of thinking about these great matters. My life is nothing but a succession of hypocrisies, because I haven’t got an income of a thousand francs, with which to buy my bread.” — 5189

“Politeness,” he told himself, “is merely the absence of that anger which creates bad manners.” — 5248

“Croisenois isn’t missing anything. For the rest of his life, all he’ll be is a sort of right-wing duke, a sort of liberal, a wobbly-minded man, forever avoiding extremes, and as a result, forever coming in second. — 5291

She stopped herself from answering, and quickly began to tease both her brother and the Marquis de Croisenois about how afraid they were of anything or anyone energetic. At bottom, this was simply fear of encountering the unexpected, the terror of falling short in its presence. . . . — 5323

he was the eagle of their little circle. — 5352

Random words, heard by chance, turn to hard facts in the eyes of a man of imagination, if there’s any fire burning in his heart. —SCHILLER — 5400

Everyone for himself, in this desert of egoism, better known as life. — 5493

Mind-made love is of course subtler than true love, but its moments of enthusiasm are limited: it understands itself too well; it is always evaluating, passing judgment. Rather than deranging the mind, it throbs only to the beating of thought. — 6022

“All in all, I’m exceedingly dull, very common, terribly boring to other people, unbearable to myself.” — 6057

He was fatally revolted by every one of his good qualities, by everything he had once loved with such enthusiasm, and in this state of inverted imagination he set himself to judging life in terms of imagination. This is decidedly a superior man’s mistake. — 6058

Several times the idea of suicide came to him. It had many attractions, it was like some delicious sleep, it was a whole glass of ice water offered to the wretch who, in a desert, is dying of thirst and heat. — 6060

Fallen into this final abyss of misery, the only resource a human being has left is courage. — 6062

“Yes, you’re my master,” she told him, still drunk with happiness and love. “Rule over me forever; punish your slave, harshly, when she tries to revolt.” — 6078

As, in the darkness, he wiped his hand along the soft earth, making sure the imprint had indeed been completely effaced, he felt something fall on his hands. It was her hair, all down one side, which she had cut off and thrown to him. She was at her window. “Here’s what your servant sends you,” she told him, not at all softly. “It’s the sign of eternal obedience. I surrender my capacity to make judgments: be my master.” — 6099

Politics will mortally offend half your readers, and bore the other half, who would have found the discussion fascinating, and wonderfully lively, in the morning newspaper. — 6352

utterly foolish and destroying our future.” — 6492

The absolute solitude of a traveler’s life added to the reign of his dark imagination. — 6597

Marshall Saint-Cyr’s Memoirs. — 6602

To seem sorrowful is perhaps not quite in good taste: you’re supposed to seem bored. If you’re sad, there’s something deficient about you, something you haven’t yet conquered. — 6611

“It’s a demonstration of inferiority. If you really are bored, on the other hand, this sort of thing would show that whoever’s been trying hard to please you is your inferior. Understand me, my dear friend: showing contempt is a serious business.” — 6612

Remember the great principle of this century: be the opposite of what you’re expected to be. Let her see you exactly as you were a week before she honored you with her favors.” — 6633

But if I sought pleasure with such prudence and care, for me it wouldn’t be pleasure. —LOPE DE VEGA — 6689

Montholon’s Memories of Napoleon on Saint-Helena, — 7126