Honore de Balzac Quotes
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In love, what a woman mistakes for disgust is actually clearsightedness. If she does not admire a man, she scorns him.
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Talent is a flame, but genius is a fire.
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A girl's coquetry is of the simplest, she thinks that all is said when the veil is laid aside; a woman's coquetry is endless, she shrouds herself in veil after veil, she satisfies every demand of man's vanity, the novice responds but to one.
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Conventions are often more cruel than the law.
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He's got his dog trained so that it only does it on newspapers. The trouble is it does it when he's reading the blasted things.
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The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.
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Equality may be the law, but no human power can install it.
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Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.
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Marriage is a fierce battle before which the two partners ask heaven for its blessing, because loving each other is the most audacious of enterprises; the battle is not slow to start, and victory, that is to say freedom, goes to the cleverest.
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Creole women take after Europe in their intelligence, after the Tropics in the illogical violence of their passions, and after the Indies in the apathetic indolence with which they commit or suffer good and evil.
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In Paris, the greatest expression of personal satisfaction known to man is the smirk on the face of a male, highly pleased with himself as he leaves the boudoir of a lady.
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A vocation is born to us all; happily most of us meet promptly our twin,--occupation.
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Does anyone know where these gondolas of Paris come from? [Fr., Ne sait on pas ou viennent ces gondoles Parisiennes?]
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Le mariage doit incessamment combattre un monstre qui de v ore tout: l'habitude. Marriage should always combat the monster that devours everything: habit.
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People who are in love suspect nothing or everything.
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Tradesmen regard an author with a mixed feeling of terror, compassion and curiosity.
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Sensuality is the death of the soul.
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Few men are raised in our estimation by being too closely examined.
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Emulation is not rivalry. Emulation is the child of ambition; rivalry is the unlovable daughter of envy.
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No woman has ever existed who did not know perfectly well in her heart what to expect from the superiority or inferiority of a rival.
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Woman is a most charming creature, who changes her heart as easily as she does her gloves.
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The most real of all splendors are not in outward things, they are within us.
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Women are happy to possess a man whom all women covet.
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Rich women need not fear old age; their gold can always create about them any feelings necessary to their happiness.