Presque tous les malheurs de la vie viennent des fausses idées que nous avons sur ce qui nous arrive. Connaître à fond les hommes, juger sainement des événements, est donc un grand pas vers le bonheur." ("Almost all our misfortunes in life come from the wrong notions we have about the things that happen to us. To know men thoroughly, to judge events sanely, is, therefore, a great step towards happiness.") [Journal entry, 10 December 1801]

He did have influence as a literary critic. In a word in Bologna “crystallization” has not yet begun. [citation needed]
In his works Stendhal "plagiarized" reprised appropriated excerpts from Giuseppe Carpani Théophile Frédéric Winckler Sismondi and others.

Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism as is evident in the novels Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma 1839). [citation needed].