One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
StendhalRead
Politics in a literary work, is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.
Interpretation
Politics disrupts the beauty of art, much like an unexpected gunshot disrupts a concert.
In this quote, Stendhal illustrates the jarring presence of politics within art, likening it to a disruptive and violent sound amid a harmonious performance. This highlights the tension between beauty and reality, suggesting that while political themes may seem out of place in artistic expressions, they demand our attention and reflection, regardless of their incongruity.
In practice
In a speech on the intersection of creativity and activism, one might quote Stendhal to illustrate the unavoidable presence of political themes in the arts.
One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
True love makes the thought of death frequent, easy, without terrors; it merely becomes the standard of comparison, the price one would pay for many things.
In love, unlike most other passions, the recollection of what you have had and lost is always better than what you can hope for in the future.
A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love.
If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.
Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.
I am married to the theater, and the films are only my mistress.
Form is, in a way, death. A novelist's obligation is to break free from the form, even though he knows that this will also be seen as artificial and distanced from life.
The fulfillment I get from a good day of writing is addictive and will always bring me back the next day.
I am big. It's the pictures that got small.
The lighter the skin, the more acceptable you are. The darker the skin, the more marginalised you become. I want to demonstrate that you can produce beauty in the context of a figure that has that kind of velvety blackness. It can be done.
There's a half-conscious state you enter when you're actually generating prose, and you are simply a better writer in that place. In fact it's the only place where you even are a writer.
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