Honore de Balzac Quotes
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When attempted self-destruction does not cure a man of life, it cures him of voluntary death.
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Economized love is never real love.
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The habits of every animal are, at least in the eyes of man, constantly similar in all ages. But the habits, the clothes, the words and the dwelling of a prince, a banker, an artist, a bourgeois, a priest and a pauper, are wholly dissimilar and change at the will of civilizations.
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The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, forgotten because it was properly done.
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A grass blade believes that men build palaces for it to grow in. Grass wedges its way between the closest blocks of marble and it brings them down. This power of feeble life which can creep in anywhere is greater than that of the mighty behind their cannons.
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Noble hearts are neither jealous nor afraid because jealousy spells doubt and fear spells pettiness.
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For pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure? Who could determine the point where pleasure becomes pain, where pain is still a pleasure? Is not the utmost brightness of the ideal world soothing to us, while the lightest shadows of the physical world annoy?
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A vocation is born to us all; happily most of us meet promptly our twin,--occupation.
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Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.
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It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.
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A lui la foi, a' elle le doute, a' elle le fardeau le plus lourd: la femme ne souffre-t-elle pas toujours pour deux? For him, faith; for her, doubt and for her theheavier load: does not the woman always suffer for both?
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Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.
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It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.
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No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.
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The day will dawn when Europe will believe only in the man who tramples her underfoot.
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Discouragement is of all ages: In youth it is a presentiment, in old age a remembrance.
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Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a sign of constancy or of love.
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When chaste people need body or mind to resort to action or thought, they find steel in their muscles or knowledge in their intelligence. Theirs the diabolic vigor or the black magic of will power.
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Lofty souls are always inclined to make a virtue of misfortune.
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Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.
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Those sweetly smiling angels with pensive looks, innocent faces, and cash-boxes for hearts.
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Un mari, comme un gouvernement, ne doit jamais avouer de faute. A husband, like a government, never needs to admit a fault.
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We do not attach ourselves lastingly to anything that has not cost us care, labor or longing.
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Whoever does not visit Paris regularly will never really be elegant.