Honore de Balzac Quotes
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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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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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Even beauty cannot always palliate eccentricity.
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Forgetting is the great secret of strong and creative lives.
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Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.
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Love is the most melodious of all harmonies.
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Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
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Love is a game in which one always cheats.
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For a sick man the world begins at his pillow and ends at the foot of his bed.
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Our energies are often stimulated by the necessity of supporting a being weaker than ourselves.
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Priests, magistrates and ladies never quite take off their gowns.
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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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The national budget is not a safe-deposit box. It is a spray can.
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To forget is the great secret of strong creative natures; to forget is the way nature herself who knows no past and who at every hour begins the mysteries of her untiring labors afresh.
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God reveals Himself, unfailingly, to the solitary, thoughtful seeker.
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Inspiration is the opportunity of genius.
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The sanctity of womanhood is incompatible with social liberty and social claims; and for a woman emancipation means corruption.
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Rich men are resolved to be astonished at nothing. When they see a masterpiece, they must needs at one glance recognize some flaw to dispense them from admiration, a vulgar emotion.
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An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence.
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The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.
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If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.
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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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But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.
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Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.