Honore de Balzac Quotes
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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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An ugly woman, married to King Henry VIII, would have defied the axe and daunted her husband's infidelities.
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Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.
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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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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 or hatred must constantly increase between two persons who are always together; every moment fresh reasons are found for loving or hating better.
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The election of a deputy to the Legislature offers a noble and majestic spectacle comparable only to the delivery of a child. It involves the same efforts, the same impurities, the same laceration, and the same triumph.
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Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.
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What a thing of fantasy a woman may become after dusk.
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It is very difficult to pass from pleasure to work. Accordingly more poems have been swallowed up by sorrow than ever happiness caused to blaze forth in unparalleled radiance.
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Happiness lends poetic charms to woman, and dress adorns her like a delicate tinge of rouge.
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Everything becomes agitated. Ideas quick-march into motion like battalions of a grand army to its legendary fighting ground, and the battle rages. Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink - for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder.
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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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Time is the only capital of those who just have their inteligence as fortune.
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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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The good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of inferiority.
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Law is a silvery web that lets the big flies pass and catches all the small ones.
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Where poverty ceases, avarice begins.
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A man wastes his time going to hear some of our eloquent modern preachers; they may change his opinions, but never his conduct.
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Coffee falls into the stomach... ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink...
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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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Men are such dupes by choice, that he who would impose upon others never need be at a loss to find ready victims.
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The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.