25+ quotes from The Red and the Black by Stendhal (2024)

Stendhal· 608 pages

Rating: (45.4K votes)

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

“A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“A melancholy air can never be the right thing; what you want is a bored air. If you are melancholy, it must be because you want something, there is something in which you have not succeeded.
It is shewing your inferiority. If you are bored, on the other hand, it is the person who has tried in vain to please you who is inferior.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“After moral poisoning, one requires physical remedies and a bottle of champagne.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Love born in the brain is more spirited, doubtless, than true love, but it has only flashes of enthusiasm; it knows itself too well, it criticizes itself incessantly; so far from banishing thought, it is itself reared only upon a structure of thought.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Indeed, man has two different beings inside him. What devil thought of that malicious touch?”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Each man for himself in that desert of egoism which is called life.”
― Stendhal, quote from 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, quote from The Red and the Black

“An English traveller relates how he lived upon intimate terms with a tiger; he had reared it and used to play with it, but always kept a loaded pistol on the table.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“I am mad, I am going under, I must follow the advice of a friend, and pay no heed to myself.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“But, if I sample this pleasure so prudently and circumspectly, it will no longer be a pleasure.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Your career will be a painful one. I divine something in you which offends the vulgar.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“What is the use of a love that makes one yawn? One might as well take to religion.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“They were completely vague. They expressed everything and nothing. 'It is the Æolian harp of style,' thought Julien. 'Amid the most lofty thoughts about annihilation, death, the infinite, etc., I can see no reality save a shocking fear of ridicule.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“For the future, I shall rely only upon those elements of my character which I have tested. Who would ever have said that I should find pleasure in shedding tears? That I should love the man who proves to me that I am nothing more than a fool?”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Un des moments les plus pénibles de sa vie était celui où, chaque matin, en s'éveillant, il s'apprenait son malheur.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“آدمى سخن مى گويد تا افكار خود را بيشتر پنهان كند.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Ce iubire mai e aceea care te face sa casti?”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“C'est la violente impression du laid sur une âme faite pour aimer ce qui est beau. ”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Prestige! Sir, is it nothing? To be revered by fools, gaped at by children, envied by the rich and scorned by the wise.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“The footman burst in, announcing, 'Monsieur le Duc de ---.'
'Hold your tongue, you fool,' said the Duke as he entered the room. He said this so well, and with such majesty than Julien could not help thinking that knowing how to lose his temper with a footman was the whole extent of this great personage's knowledge.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“...one of the traits of genius is not to drag its thought through the rut worn by vulgar minds.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

“Exalted by a sentiment of which she was proud, and that overcame all her arrogance, she was reluctant to let a moment of her life go by without occupying it with some remarkable deed.”
― Stendhal, quote from The Red and the Black

About the author

Popular quotes

“How easy it is to mock, how hard it is to understand! Yet mockery has ever mocked the mocker.”
― Mikhail Naimy, quote from The Book of Mirdad: The Strange Story of a Monastery Which Was Once Called the Ark

“always meant to run away someday.”
― quote from Little Pilgrim's Progress: From John Bunyan's Classic

“People, he told her, are shaped somehow by their climate and the land they live in. Those who live by the sea are like the currents and tides; they go and come, and discover many shores. Their words and loves are like water that slips between one's fingers and is never still. Mountain people have fought the mountain to win their place. Once they have conquered it they protect their mountain, and others coming from far below in the valley risk being seen as enemies. Hill people take some time before greeting each other.”
― Gil Courtemanche, quote from A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali

“He is well satisfied with his accommodation, which provides all modern amenities in a compact and convenient form, and leaves him the maximum amount of time free for his work. How much time people waste in walking from one room to another.... Space is time.”
― David Lodge, quote from Small World

“The world of human aspiration is largely fictitious and if we do not understand this we understand nothing about man.”
― Ernest Becker, quote from The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.