Honore de Balzac Quotes
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There are words which cut like steel.
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Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them, the timid keyboard, the fingering so changeful and capricious which befits it.
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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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We are scarcely apt to berate the source of enjoyment.
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Prostitution and robbery are two living protests, respectively female and male, made by the natural state against the social state.
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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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There are two histories : official history, lying, and then secret history, where you find the real causes of events.
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In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.
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One hour of love has a whole life in it.
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At fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist: a woman is all promise.
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When passion is not fed, it changes to need. At this juncture, marriage becomes a fixed idea in the mind of the bourgeois, being the only means whereby he can win a woman and appropriate her to his uses.
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Woman is closer to angels than man because she knows how to mingle an infinite tenderness with the most absolute compassion.
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The secret of the nobility and beauty of great ladies lies in the art with which they can shed their veils. In such situations, they become like ancient statues. If they kept the merest scarf on, they would be lewd. Your bourgeois woman will always try to cover her nakedness.
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Many people claim coffee inspires them, but, as everybody knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring.
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If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.
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Poetry is only born after painful journeys into the vast regions of thought.
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A naked woman is less dangerous than one who spreads her skirt skillfully to cover and exhibit everything at once.
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For the journalist, anything probable is gospel truth.
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Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice.
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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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Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual. Misfortune is a stepping stone for a genius, a piscina for a Christian, a treasure for a man of parts, and an abyss for a weakling.
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While seeking out the dead, I see nothing but the living.
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Resignation is a daily suicide.
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According to man's environment, society has made as many different types of men as there are varieties in zoology. The differences between a soldier, a workman, a statesman, a tradesman, a sailor, a poet, a pauper and a priest, are more difficult to seize, but quite considerable as the differences between a wolf, a lion, an ass, a crow, a sea-calf, a sheep, and so on.