Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Love is a religion, and its rituals cost more than those of other religions. It goes by quickly and, like a street urchin, it likes to mark its passage by a trail of devastation.
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Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.
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Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
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Poverty is a divine stepmother who does for youths what their own mothers were unable to do. It introduces them to frugality, to the world and to life.
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Clothes are like a gloss that sets off everything; dresser were invented more to enhance physical advantages than to veil physical defects.
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Woman is closer to angels than man because she knows how to mingle an infinite tenderness with the most absolute compassion.
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The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.
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The boor covers himself, the rich man or the fool adorns himself, and the elegant man gets dressed.
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The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.
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What is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood?
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The union of a want and a sentiment.
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All poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.
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The good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of inferiority.
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There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.
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People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.
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When a woman starts talking about her duty, her regard for appearances, and her respect for religion, she raises so many bulwarks which she delights to see captured by storm.
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A woman must be a genius to create a good husband.
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Reading brings us unknown friends.
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Remorse is impotence, impotence which sins again. Repentance alone is powerful; it ends all.
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Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.
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Journalism is a giant catapult set in motion by pigmy hatreds.
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The Parisan, sauntering the streets idly, is as often a man in despair as a lounger.
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The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
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The glutton is much more than an animal and much less than a man.