Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Can you find a man who loves the occupation that provides him with a livelihood? Professions are like marriages; we end by feeling only their inconveniences.
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An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence.
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Liberty begets anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings about liberty once again. Millions of human beings have perished without being able to make any of these systems triumph.
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It is a singular fact that most men of action incline to the theory of fatalism, while the greater part of men of thought believe in providence.
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To promote laughter without joining in it greatly heightens the effect.
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Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?
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There are two kinds of poets: those who feel and those who express themselves. The former are happier.
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Once she has committed sin, there is nothing left for the Protestant woman, whereas the Catholic Church, hope of forgiveness makes a woman sublime.
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One exits with one's husband -- one lives with one's lover.
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Love is not only a feeling, it is also an art. A simple word, a sensitive precaution, a mere nothing reveal to a woman the sublime artist who can touch her heart without withering it.
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We cannot confront solitude without moral resources.
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When there is an old maid in the house, a watchdog is unnecessary.
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No woman allows her lover to descend from his pedestal. Even a god is not forgiven the slightest pettiness.
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A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.
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Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong, so the one we hate can do no right.
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Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.
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Hope is a light diet, but very stimulating.
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Beaucoup d'hommes ont un orgueil qui les pousse a' cacher leurs combats et a' ne se montrer que victorieux. Many men have pride that causes them to hide their combats and to only show themselves victorious.
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In the medical profession a horse and carriage are more necessary than any scientific knowledge.
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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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Vulgar souls look hastily and superficially at the sea and accuse it of monotony; other more privileged beings could spend a lifetime admiring it and discovering new and changing phenomena that delight them. So it is with love.
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Like hunger, physical love is a necessity. But man's appetite for amour is never so regular or so sustained as his appetite for the delights of the table.
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Gratitude is a fool's word; we find it in the dictionary, but it is not in the heart of man.
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A man is a poor creature compared to a woman.