Honore de Balzac Quotes
-
There are words which cut like steel.
-
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.
-
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.
-
One hour of love has a whole life in it.
-
Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.
-
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.
-
A great writer is nothing less than a martyr who does not die.
-
We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are.
-
The boor covers himself, the rich man or the fool adorns himself, and the elegant man gets dressed.
-
While seeking out the dead, I see nothing but the living.
-
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.
-
If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.
-
Chance, my dear, is the sovereign deity in child-bearing.
-
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.
-
You're a fine fastidious young man, as proud as a lion, as gentle as a girl. You'd make a good catch for the devil.
-
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.
-
Marriage must perforce fight against the all-devouring monster of habit.
-
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
-
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.
-
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.
-
An ounce of courage will go farther with women than a pound of timidity.
-
One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.
-
Numbers are intellectual witnesses that belong only to mankind.
-
For the journalist, anything probable is gospel truth.