Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Memories beautify life, but the capacity to forget makes it bearable.
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No husband will ever be better avenged than by his wife's lover.
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When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army.
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Clouds signify the veil of the Most High.
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Love is the only way on which even the dim-witted reaches certain heights.
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Woman has this in common with angels, that suffering beings belong especially to her.
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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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Love based upon money and vanity forms the most stubborn of passions.
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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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Cruelty and fear shake hands together.
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Do you know how a man makes his way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful corruption. You must either cut your way through these masses of men like a cannon ball, or steal among them like a plague.
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I can no longer think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me.
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Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.
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Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
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Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.
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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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Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.
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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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Foppery, being the chronic condition of women, is not so much noticed as it is when it breaks out on the person of the male bird.
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Le coeur d'une me' re est un ab|"me au fond duquel se trouve toujours un pardon. A mother'sheart isanabyss atthebottomof whichthere is always forgiveness.
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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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At thirty years a woman asks her lover to give her back the esteem she has forfeited for his sake; she lives only for him, her thoughts are full of his future, he must have a great career, she bids him make it glorious; she can obey, entreat, command, humble herself, or rise in pride; times without number she brings comfort when a young girl can only make moan.
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Love and work have the virtues of making a man pretty indifferent to anything else.