Honoré de Balzac Quotes

“Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a sign of constancy or of love.”

“If those who are the enemies of innocent amusements had the direction of the world, they would take away the spring, and youth, the former from the year, the latter from human life.”

“Great minds always tend to see virtue in misfortune.”

“Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.”

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

“Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.”

“There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.”

“Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.”

“Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.”

“It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.”

“What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?”

“But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.”

“Lovers have a way of using this word, nothing, which implies exactly the opposite.”

“At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist; there can only be promise of the coming woman.”

“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.”

“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.”

“If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man's life would only serve to make a chronological table-a fool's notion of history.”

“First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.”

“Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.”

“Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.”

“Love is a game in which one always cheats.”

“Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.”

“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.”

“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.”

“A man is a poor creature compared to a woman.”

“Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.”

“Love is the poetry of the senses.”

“There are two histories : official history, lying, and then secret history, where you find the real causes of events.”

“Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.”

“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.”

“Life cannot go on without much forgetting.”

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

“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.”

“The good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of inferiority.”

“Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.”

“Reading brings us unknown friends”

“Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin.”

“Thought is a key to all treasures; the miser's gains are ours without his cares. Thus I have soared above this world, where my enjoyment have been intellectual joys.”

“A naked woman is less dangerous than one who spreads her skirt skillfully to cover and exhibit everything at once.”

“If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.”

“When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.”

“The duration of passion is proportionate with the original resistance of the woman.”

“Finance, like time, devours its own children.”

“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.”

“Unintelligent persons are like weeds that thrive in good ground; they love to be amused in proportion to the degree in which they weary themselves.”

“Women are tenacious, and all of them should be tenacious of respect; without esteem they cannot exist; esteem is the first demand that they make of love.”

“Conscience is our unerring judge until we finally stifle it.”

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

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

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