Honore de Balzac Quotes

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

"He who best knows the world will love it least."

"People who are in love suspect nothing or everything."

"A great writer is nothing less than a martyr who does not die."

"Talent is a flame, but genius is a fire."

"The greatest tyranny is to love I where we are not loved again."

"Temperament is the thermometer of character."

"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."

"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."

"A jealous husband doesn't doubt his wife, but himself."

"Those who spend too fast never grow rich."

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

"Noble hearts are neither jealous nor afraid because jealousy spells doubt and fear spells pettiness."

"Love is the poetry of the senses."

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

"People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are."

"In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls."

"Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies."

"When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt."

"The more one judges, the less one loves."

"Like hunger, physical love is a necessity. But man's appetite for amour is never so regular or so sustained as his appetite for the delights of the table."

"In a world of hunchbacks, a fine figure becomes a monstrosity."

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

"Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt."

"Women are happy to possess a man whom all women covet."

"A man is a poor creature compared to a woman."

"Man is no match for woman where mischief reigns."

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

"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."

"Hope is a light diet, but very stimulating."

"Our greatest fears lie in anticipation."

"In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls."

"What makes friendship in dissolute and what doubles its charms is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude."

"A woman must be a genius to create a good husband."

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

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

"Cruelty and fear shake hands together."

"To be happy, a man must love his wife as she chooses to be loved."

"Old men are prone to invest the futures of young men with their own past sorrows."

"Love is perhaps no more than gratitude for pleasure."

"Every moment of happiness requires a great amount of Ignorance"

"Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron."

"Life cannot go on without much forgetting."

"Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself."

"In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or no, become the judges of their parents."

"The first thing necessary to win the heart of a woman is opportunity."

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

"It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action."

"Where poverty ceases, avarice begins."

"It is quite right what they say: the three most beautiful sights in the world are a ship in full sail, a galloping horse, and a woman dancing."

"All human power is a compound of time and patience."

"Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies."

"Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own."

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.

"Do you know what is the hardest thing in life? To make a choice."

"The victory always has a lot of parents but the defeat is always an orphan."

"Forgetting is the great secret of strong and creative lives."

"No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife."

"Equality may be a right, but no power on earth can convert it into fact."