Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.
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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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The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.
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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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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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Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.
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Incurable wounds are those inflicted by tongue and eye, by mockery and disdain.
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We must certainly acknowledge that solitude is a fine thing; but it is a pleasure to have some one who can answer, and to whom we can say, from time to time, that solitude is a fine thing.
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A woman in love has full intelligence of her power; the more virtuous she is, the more effective her coquetry.
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The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.
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Virtually all men of action incline to Fatality just as most thinkers incline to Providence.
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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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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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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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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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Where poverty ceases, avarice begins.
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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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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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A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
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You may imitate, but never counterfeit.
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A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.
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Inspiration is the opportunity of genius.
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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.