Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Love based upon money and vanity forms the most stubborn of passions.
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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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A woman questions the man who loves exactly as a judge questions a criminal. This being so, a flash of the eye, a mere word, an inflection of the voice or a moment's hesitation suffice to expose the fact, betrayal or crime he is attempting to conceal.
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Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.
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A woman's greatest charm consists in a constant appeal to a man's generosity by a gracious declaration of helplessness which fills him with pride and awakens the most magnificent feelings in his heart.
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A jealous husband doesnt doubt his wife, but himself.
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Love is the only way on which even the dim-witted reaches certain heights.
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Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
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When women love, they forgive everything...
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Woman has this in common with angels, that suffering beings belong especially to her.
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The questioning spirit is the rebellious spirit. A rebellion is always either a cloak to hide a prince, or the swaddling wrapper of a new rule.
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Man judges of nature in relation to itself; the angelic spirit judges of it in relation to heaven. In short, to the spirits everything speaks.
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One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.
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In a husband, there is only a man; in a married woman, there is a man, a father, a mother and a woman.
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Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.
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Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.
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Old maids claw as cats do. They not only inflict wounds but experience pleasure in doing so. Nor will they fail to remind their victims of the blood drawn.
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When tempted to be unfaithful, the intellectual woman will try to inspire her husband with indifference, the sentimental woman with hatred, and the passionate woman with disgust.
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Yes, I can understand that a man might go to a gambling table when he sees that all that lies between him and death is his last crown.
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The errors of women spring, almost always, from their faith in the good, or their confidence in the true.
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No frozen-hearted woman ever I laid eyes on but has made duty her religion.
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Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.
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Grief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere.
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Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual.