Honore de Balzac Quotes
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A beautiful book is a victory won in all the battlefields of human thought.
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In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.
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There are words which cut like steel.
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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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If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.
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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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The Police and the Society of Jesus posses in common the virtue of never forsaking their enemies as friends.
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White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it; like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light.
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This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.
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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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The fashions we call English in Paris are French in London, and vice versa. Franco-British hostility vanishes when it comes to questions of words and clothing. God save the King is a tune composed by Lully for a chorus in a play by Racine.
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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 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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It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role.
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While seeking out the dead, I see nothing but the living.
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Poetry is only born after painful journeys into the vast regions of thought.
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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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It's not enough to be a good person. You also have to show it.
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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.
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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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Marriage must perforce fight against the all-devouring monster of habit.
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Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind.
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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.