Honoré de Balzac Quotes

“Love or hatred must constantly increase between two persons who are always together; every moment fresh reasons are found for loving or hating better.”

“When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.”

“Love is the poetry of the senses.”

“A husband who submits to his wife's yoke is justly held an object of ridicule. A woman's influence ought to be entirely concealed.”

“The woman you buy takes a great deal of money. The woman who gives herself to you takes all your money.”

“A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.”

“To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals - that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.”

“A mother who is really a mother is never free.”

“An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence.”

“The press is like a woman: sublime when it lies, it will not let go until it has forced you to believe it. The public, like a foolish husband, always succumbs.”

“Law is a silvery web that lets the big flies pass and catches all the small ones.”

“The life of a man who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a business speculation; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and acquaintances are his capital.”

“The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.”

“Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.”

“Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.”

“I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race.”

“Reading brings us unknown friends”

“Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.”

“We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.”

“A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way.”

“It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants.”

“It would be curious to know what leads a man to become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father's craft.”

“The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.”

“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.”

“There are some women whose pregnancy would make some sly bachelor smile.”