The Charterhouse of Parma Quotes

“The lover thinks oftener of reaching his mistress than the husband thinks of guarding his wife; the prisoner thinks more often of escape than the jailer thinks of locking the doors. Therefore, in spite of every obstacle, the lover and the prisoner are certain to succeed.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“This beautiful thought, of 'dying close by that which one loves', expressed in a hundred different ways, was followed by a sonnet in which it was found that the soul, separated, after atrocious torments, from the frail body in which it dwelt for twenty-three years, and impelled by that instinct for happiness natural to all that has once existed, would not reascend to heaven to mingle with angelic choirs as soon as it was set free, and in the event of the awful judgment according it forgiveness for its sins, but, happier after death than it had been in life, it would go a few steps from the prison where it had lamented for so long, to be reunited with all that it had loved in the world. And thus, the sonnet's last line went. I shall have found my paradise on earth.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“There's one convenience about absolute power, that it sanctifies everything in the eyes of the people.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“  On the other hand in America, in the Republic, one has to spend the whole weary day paying serious court to the shopkeepers in the street, and must become as stupid as they are; and there, one has no Opera.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“(out of what miseries does love create its happiness!):”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Those people fleeing down the main road look like a flock of sheep… They’re going along like frightened sheep…’ In vain did Fabrice stress the word sheep, his companions no longer remembered being annoyed by the word an hour earlier. This demonstrates one of the differences between the Italian and the French characters: the Frenchman is undoubtedly the happier of the two, for he glides lightly over life’s incidents and harbours no resentment.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Mutluluğu uzaklarda aramaya kalkmanın ne anlamı var, işte burada, elimin altında!”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Tahtın üzerine ya da yakınına doğan zeki insanlar, kısa sürede incelikli düşünme yetilerini yitirirler; çevrelerinde, kabalık olarak gördükleri konuşma özgürlüğünü yasaklarlar;
yalnızca birtakım maskeler görmek isterler ve insanları tenlerinin güzelliğine bakarak yargılamaya kalkarlar; işin hoş yanı, sezgilerinin çok ince olduğuna inanmalarıdır.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“petty despotisms reduce to nothing the value of public opinion.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“This man, whom great monarchies would have envied the prince of Parma, was known to have only one passion: of holding intimate conversations with great personages and currying favour by his buffoonery.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Aşık sevgilisine ulaşmayı, kocasının karısını düşündüğünden daha sık düşünür; tutsak kaçıp kurtulmayı, gardiyan kapısını kapatmayı düşündüğünden daha sık düşünür, demek ki, engeller ne olursa olsun aşık ve tutsak başarılı olmalıdır.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Thieves! Thieves!’ he was now shouting in French. In despair, not so much over the loss of his horse as over the betrayal, he collapsed at the edge of the ditch, exhausted and dreadfully hungry. If his lovely horse had been stolen from him by the enemy he would not have given it a second thought; but to be betrayed and robbed by that sergeant he liked so much and those hussars he thought of as his brothers! That was what broke his heart.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“All this is dreadfully ominous: my destiny will lead me to prison. Fabrice would have given anything in the world to know whether the hussar Boulot was actually guilty: as he searched his memory, he thought he recalled the jailer’s wife in B*** telling him that the hussar had been arrested not only over some silver forks and spoons, but also for having stolen a peasant’s cow and beaten the peasant almost to death: Fabrice had no doubt that he would one day be put in prison for a crime that would have some connection with that of the hussar Boulot.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“la peur a été cent fois pire que le mal.”
― Stendhal, La Chartreuse de Parme

“The Duchess’s voice, and its tone, were as strange as her appearance. This tone, stripped of all passion, of all human concern, of all anger, made the Count turn pale; it reminded him of the demeanour of one of his friends who, some months earlier, on the point of death, and having already received the sacraments, had asked to see him.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Quinze jours de désespoir et quinze jours d’espérance, c’est par ce régime patiemment suivi que nous parviendrons à vaincre le caractère de cette femme altière ; c’est par ces alternatives de douceur et de dureté que l’on arrive à dompter les chevaux les plus féroces. Appliquez le caustique ferme. ”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Geistig begabte Menschen, die auf einem Thron oder in seiner Nähe geboren sind, verlieren häufig das Feingefühl. Um sie herum ist freimütige Unterhaltung verpönt; sie erscheint ihnen grob. Sie wollen nur Masken sehen und maßen sich doch ein Urteil über die Schönheit der Gesichtsfarbe an.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Le bonheur le porta à une hauteur de pensées assez étrangère à son caractère; il considérait les événements de la vie lui, si jeune, comme si déjà il fût arrivé à sa dernière limite."Il faut en convenir, depuis mon arrivée à Parme, se dit-il enfin après plusieurs heures de rêveries délicieuses, je n'ai point eu de joie tranquille et parfaite, comme celle que je trouvais à Naples en galopant dans les chemins de Vomero ou en courant les rives de Misène. Tous”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“The presence of danger inspires a sensible man with genius, raising him, so to speak, above himself. In the case of the man of imagination, it inspires him with romances, which may indeed be bold, but which are frequently absurd.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“At first Fabrice refused to even consider the idea of the Church; he spoke of going to New York, of becoming a citizen and a soldier of the Republic in America.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Politics in a work of literature are like a pistol-shot in the middle of a concert, something loud and vulgar and yet a thing to which it is not possible to refuse one's attention.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Quiet! Go over there, fifty paces away from the wood, and you’ll find one of those poor soldiers from our regiment who’ve just been sabred; take his musket and cartridge-pouch. Be sure not to take ‘em from one of the wounded, take the musket and cartridge-pouch of someone who’s good and dead, and hurry, so you don’t get shot by our men.’ Fabrice ran off, returning very quickly with a musket and cartridge-pouch.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Beyond these hills, the crests of which offer one hermitages in all of which one would like to dwell, the astonished eye perceives the peaks of the Alps, always covered in snow, and their stern austerity recalls to one so much of the sorrows of life as is necessary to enhance one's immediate pleasure. The imagination is touched by the distant sound of the bell of some little village hidden among the trees: these sounds, borne across the waters which soften their tone, assume a tinge of gentle melancholy and resignation, and seem to be saying to man: 'Life is fleeting: do not therefore show yourself so obdurate towards the happiness that is offered you, make haste to enjoy it.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“That Minister, in spite of his urbane manner and his brilliant style, did not have a French soul; he was not capable of forgetting his troubles. If something in his bolster was pricking him, he had to break it and blunt it by pressing down upon it with his quivering limbs.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Provava un senso di orrore all'idea di dover mettere la sua amata solitudine e i suoi pensieri più intimi a disposizione di un giovanotto che, in qualità di marito, sarebbe stato autorizzato a sconvolgere tutta quella sua vita interiore. È vero, con la solitudine non aveva raggiunto la felicità, ma almeno era arrivata a evitare le sensazioni troppo dolorose.”
― Stendhal, The Charter-House of Parma (La Chartreuse De Parme) In Two Volumes

“la villa Melzi, dall’altra parte del lago, proprio di fronte al castello, in piena vista, e, sopra, il bosco degli Sfondrata, e il brusco promontorio che separa i due rami del lago – quello di Como, sontuosamente affascinante, e quello di Lecco, più austero. Sono luoghi di una bellezza nobile, elegante, paragonabili, e non inferiori, al paesaggio più famoso del mondo, quello del golfo di Napoli.”
― Stendhal, La Certosa di Parma

“People of his sort, he reflected, can only recognize power if it is cloaked in insolence.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Believe me, in America life both for you and for me would be a sorry business.’ She explained to him the worship of the almighty dollar, and the respect one must show for the ordinary workman, who decides everything with his vote. They returned to the idea of the Church.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“Hay que confesar que había días en que la condesa no dirigía la palabra a nadie; era vista paseando bajo los altos castaños, hundida en sombríos ensueños; era demasiado inteligente para no sentir a veces cuán tedioso es no tener con quién cambiar ideas.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma

“I am in agreement with its view that everything that has happened since the death of Louis XV in 1715 is at once a crime and a blunder. The greatest concern of man is his salvation—there cannot be two opinions on such a subject—and that joy will endure for all eternity. The words “liberty, justice, the happiness of the majority”, are vile and criminal; they foster habits of discussion and distrust in the minds of men. A chamber of deputies will distrust what those people call “the ministry”. Once this fatal habit of distrust has taken hold, human frailty applies it to everything, man begins to distrust the Bible, the commands of the Church, tradition, etc., etc.; from that moment he is lost.”
― Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma