Honore de Balzac Quotes
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What is art? Nature concentrated.
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Isn't it really quite extraordinary to see that, since man took his first step, no one has asked himself why he walks, how he walks, if he has ever walked, if he could walk better, what he achieves in walking .. questions that are tied to all the philosophical, psychological, and political systems which preoccupy the world.
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Glory and fame mean twelve thousand francs' worth of paid articles in the newspapers and five thousand crowns' worth of dinners.
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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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A woman must be a genius to create a good husband.
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What is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood?
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No society is complete without some victim, a creature to pity, to jeer at, to scorn or to protect.
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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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Journalism is a giant catapult set in motion by pigmy hatreds.
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A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life.
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The love of nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes.
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Tradesmen regard an author with a mixed feeling of terror, compassion and curiosity.
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When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.
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The glutton is much more than an animal and much less than a man.
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Conventions are often more cruel than the law.
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Remorse is impotence, impotence which sins again. Repentance alone is powerful; it ends all.
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Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.
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Men who pay their tailors never amount to anything, they never even become Cabinet ministers.
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The woman you buy takes a great deal of money. The woman who gives herself to you takes all your money.
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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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A rent in your clothes is a mishap, a stain on them is a vice.
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For the journalist, anything probable is gospel truth.
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The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
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A year at the breast is quite enough; children who are suckled longer are said to grow stupid, and I am all for popular sayings.