Stendhal quote on friends?

July 19, 2005 11:17 PM

I'm trying to locate a wonderful quote by Stendhal, the spirit of which was something along the lines of: "in [such and such year], my friends would have done anything to help me out if I were in serious trouble, but if they caught me in nice clothes, they'd spill a drink on me." Of course, the actual quote is infinitely more elegant.
posted by ori to Writing & Language (5 answers total)

I personally don't know, but perhaps the reason you can't find anything as elegant as his quote is answered by another one of his quotes

"It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now."

(sigh)

So true, not many noble writers anymore. I'm still searching for your quote.
posted by lockle at 11:27 PM on July 19, 2005

I browsed a repository of his words (in french), couldn't find it.
posted by XiBe at 2:13 AM on July 20, 2005

Best answer: I come here directly from languagehat's userpage, where he happens to keep this very quote on file. A particular MeFi relevance, hmm?
posted by Tufa at 2:30 AM on July 20, 2005

Best answer: Heh. Beat me to the punch. I don't know where it's from in Stendhal's oeuvre, though—I found it quoted by somebody else—so if you turn up the source, I'll be grateful. I love that quote.
posted by languagehat at 5:59 AM on July 20, 2005

Response by poster: Hey, cool! I probably saw it in languagehat's profile first. Couldn't remember it, tho, and it was killing me.
posted by ori at 12:54 PM on July 20, 2005