LilyAnne’s Reviews > The Red and the Black > Status Update

“ought he who wishes to banish ignorance and cring from the world go through it like a tempest, dealing out evil at random?”

“This extremely witty man seemed uneasy, and Julien saw him rally somewhat only when he had found three or four arresting things to say. It seemed to Julien that this kind of wit required space. The Baron had not the capacity to produce epigrams; in order to shine he needed at least four sentences of six lines each.”

“Not between vice and virtue, but between the mediocrity consequent on assured well-being and all the heroic dreams of his youth. So I lack true resolution, he said to himself. This was the suspicion which gave him most pain. I'm not the wood out of which great men are fashioned, since I'm afraid that eight years spent earning my bread will rob me of the sublime energy required to do extraordinary things.”