“Were I to buy this life of pleasure and this only chance at happiness with a few little dangers, where would be the harm? And wouldn’t it still be fortunate to find a weak excuse to give her proof of my love?”
Quand je devrais acheter cette vie de délices et cette chance unique de bonheur par quelques petits dangers, où serait le mal? Et ne serait-ce pas encore un bonheur que de trouver ainsi une faible occasion de lui donner une preuve de mon amour?
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 20
Original
Quand je devrais acheter cette vie de délices et cette chance unique de bonheur par quelques petits dangers, où serait le mal? Et ne serait-ce pas encore un bonheur que de trouver ainsi une faible occasion de lui donner une preuve de mon amour?
La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839)
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Stendhal 50
French writer 1783–1842Related quotes
“Money doesn't buy happiness, Gytha."
"I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks!”
“TO LOVE is to find pleasure in the happiness of others.”
"A Dialogue" (after 1695), as quoted in The Shorter Leibniz Texts (2006) http://books.google.com/books?id=oFoCY3xJ8nkC&dq edited by Lloyd H. Strickland, p. 170
Context: TO LOVE is to find pleasure in the happiness of others. Thus the habit of loving someone is nothing other than BENEVOLENCE by which we want the good of others, not for the profit that we gain from it, but because it is agreeable to us in itself.
CHARITY is a general benevolence. And JUSTICE is charity in accordance with wisdom. … so that one does not do harm to someone without necessity, and that one does as much good as one can, but especially where it is best employed.
My Life and Confessions, for Philippine, 1786
“Sometimes it's the courage to move on that will give you the chance to find happiness.”
Original: A volte è il coraggio di andare avanti che vi darà la possibilità di trovare la felicità.
Source: prevale.net
History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, v. 7, chapter 2, p. 19
Referenced
“Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength.”
“There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.”
Iphigenia in Tauris (c. 412 BC) l. 721
