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.
StendhalBut, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.
StendhalThe French are the wittiest, the most charming, and up to the present, at all events, the least musical race on Earth.
StendhalWar was then no longer this noble and unified outburst of souls in love with glory that he had imagined from Napoleon's proclamations.
StendhalA 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.
Stendhal