Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Women, perhaps even require a little hypocrisy.
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Neither the passions not justice nor politics nor the great social forces ever consider the victims they strike.
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All poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.
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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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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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There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.
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Journalism is a giant catapult set in motion by pigmy hatreds.
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For the journalist, anything probable is gospel truth.
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One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.
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It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.
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Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God.
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The love of nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes.
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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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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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A rent in your clothes is a mishap, a stain on them is a vice.
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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 good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning.
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Doubt follows white-winged hope with trembling steps.
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A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over.
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Tradesmen regard an author with a mixed feeling of terror, compassion and curiosity.
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People who are in love suspect nothing or everything.
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If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.
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There is nothing original; all is reflected light.
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At fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist: a woman is all promise.