James > James's Quotes

“A good book is an event in my life.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“The idea which tyrants find most useful is the idea of God.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“The ordinary procedure of the nineteenth century is that when a powerful and noble personage encounters a man of feeling, he kills, exiles, imprisons or so humiliates him that the other, like a fool, dies of grief.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“L’idée la plus utile aux tyrans est celle de Dieu,”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“Punish me for my atrocious pride,” she said to him, squeezing him in her arms as though to strangle him; “you are my master, I am your slave, I must beg pardon upon my knees for having sought to rebel.” She slipped from his embrace to fall at his feet. “Yes, you are my master,” she said again, intoxicated with love and joy; “reign over me for ever, punish your slave severely when she seeks to rebel.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“In another moment she had torn herself from his arms, lighted the candle, and Julien had all the difficulty in the world in preventing her from cutting off all one side of her hair. “I wish to remind myself,” she told him, “that I am your servant: should my accursed pride ever make me forget it, show me these locks and say: “There is no question now of love, we are not concerned with the emotion that your heart may be feeling at this moment, you have sworn to obey, obey upon your honour.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black