Honore de Balzac Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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A ruler makes use of the majority and neglects the minority, and so he does not devote himself to virtue but to law.
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Compassion is not a popular virtue.
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A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
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Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
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To every object there correspond an ideally closed system of truths that are true of it and, on the other hand, an ideal system of possible cognitive processes by virtue of which the object and the truths about it would be given to any cognitive subject.
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Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.
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Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.
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Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.
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Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.
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Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.
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Self-denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.
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You cannot lift others to virtue on the one hand if you are entertaining vice on the other.
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Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain, in respect to ourselves, to our fellowmen, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation.
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Opportunity often comes in disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.
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There is explosive power in virtue.
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Teaching and research are not to be confused with training for a profession. Their greatness and their misfortune is that they are a refuge or a mission.
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There is that in the soul of man which must respond to the highest in virtue. It may not respond at once. Human nature can easily be over-faced by examples too remote and austere. Moreover, human nature can easily deny God because the whole race has long been in rebellion against Him. Yet there is that in human nature which calls out to the supreme examples of virtue: owns, as it were, the intention of God who made it, and feels the unmistakable homesickness of the soul.
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Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it; the old Christian rule is, "Either marriage, with completely faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence."
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...happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely.
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And what shall he suffer who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own best friend? I mean the suicide, who deprives himself by violence of his appointed share of life. Not because the law of the state requires him. Nor yet under the compulsion of some painful and inevitable misfortune which has come upon him. Nor because he has had to suffer from irremediable and intolerable shame, but who from sloth or want of manliness imposes upon himself an unjust penalty.
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Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.
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A coerced "choice" does not reflect virtue, only compliance.
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Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.
