Honore de Balzac Quotes
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A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.
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No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.
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As a rule, only the poor are generous.
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Danger arouses interest. Where death is involved, the vilest criminal invariably stirs a little compassion.
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Society proceeds like the ocean. After a disaster, it resume its wonted level and rhythms; its devouring interests efface all traces of damage.
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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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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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A woman must be a genius to create a good husband.
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Women are as they are; they necessarily have the defects of their virtues.
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To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.
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Imaginative, sanguine men will never recognize that in negotiations the most dangerous moment of all is when everything is moving according to their wishes.
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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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Power does not consist in striking with force or with frequency, but in striking true.
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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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Neither the passions not justice nor politics nor the great social forces ever consider the victims they strike.
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In the first woman we love, we love everything. Growing older, we love the woman only.
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The first thing necessary to win the heart of a woman is opportunity.
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Men who pay their tailors never amount to anything, they never even become Cabinet ministers.
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Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God.
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By and large, women have a faith and a morality peculiar to themselves; they believe in the reality of everything that serves their interest and their passions.
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Genius is answerable only to itself; it is the sole judge of the means, since it alone knows the end; thus genius must consider itself as above the law, for it is the task of genius to remake the law; moreover the man who frees himself from his time and place may take everything, hazard everything, for everything is his by right.
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Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.
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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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In a world of hunchbacks, a fine figure becomes a monstrosity.