Honore de Balzac Quotes
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Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind.
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It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.
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Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer – Death has never forsaken any man.
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All happiness depends on courage and work.
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Admiration bestowed upon any one but ourselves is always tedious.
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We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are.
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A society of atheists would immediately invent a religion.
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While seeking out the dead, I see nothing but the living.
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When an intelligent man reaches the point of inviting self-explanation and offers surrendering the key to his heart, he is assuredly riding a drunken horse.
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There are words which cut like steel.
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Resignation is a daily suicide.
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The greater a man's talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy.
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For the journalist, anything probable is gospel truth.
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The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
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The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.
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Poverty is a divine stepmother who does for youths what their own mothers were unable to do. It introduces them to frugality, to the world and to life.
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One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.
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The causes that govern the heart appear to be wholly alien to the results achieved. Are the forces that moved a desperate criminal the same that fill a martyr with pride, as both mount the scaffold?
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Glory and fame mean twelve thousand francs' worth of paid articles in the newspapers and five thousand crowns' worth of dinners.
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You may imitate, but never counterfeit.
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The boor covers himself, the rich man or the fool adorns himself, and the elegant man gets dressed.
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In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.
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When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.
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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.