Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.
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Where poverty ceases, avarice begins.
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This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.
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No hawk swooping down upon his prey, no stag improvising new detours by which to trick the huntsman, no dog scenting game from afar is comparable in speed to the celerity of a salesman when he gets wind a deal, to his skill in tripping up or forestalling a rival, and to the art with which he sniffs out and discovers a possible sale.
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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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Poles offer a mobility like that of the wind that blows over the immense plains and marches of Poland. Show a Pole a precipice, and he will leap headlong over it.
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We cannot confront solitude without moral resources.
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Inspiration is the opportunity of genius.
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Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.
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Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.
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What makes friendship indissolute and what doubles its charms is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude.
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One day, about the middle of July 1838, one of the carriages, lately introduced to Paris cabstands, and known as Milords, was driving down the Rue de l'Universite, conveying a stout man of middle height in the uniform of a captain of the National Guard.
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Whereas scoundrels become reconciled after knifing one another, lovers break up irrevocably over a mere glance or word.
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Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.
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The prodigality of millionaires is comparable only to their greed of gain. Let some whim or passion seize them and money is of no account. In fact these Croesuses find whims and passions harder to come by than gold.
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There are as many mediocrities exalted through pity as masters decried through envy.
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Our energies are often stimulated by the necessity of supporting a being weaker than ourselves.
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How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.
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Love is the most melodious of all harmonies.
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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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Marriage is a fight to the death. Before contracting it, the two parties concerned implore the benediction of Heaven because to promise to love each other forever is the rashest of enterprises.
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Virtually all men of action incline to Fatality just as most thinkers incline to Providence.
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If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way down.
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Happiness lends poetic charms to woman, and dress adorns her like a delicate tinge of rouge.