The first qualification for a ...

The first qualification for a historian is to have no ability to invent.
 Stendhal

Quotes from the same author

This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
 Stendhal
A man who is half an idiot, but who keeps a sharp lookout and acts prudently all his life, often enjoys the pleasure of triumphing over men of more imagination than he
 Stendhal
The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.
 Stendhal
The worst of prison life, he thought, was not being able to close his door.
 Stendhal
To find love in Paris you must go down among those classes where the absence of education and of vanity, and the struggle for bare necessities, have allowed more energy to survive.
 Stendhal