“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.” Honore de Balzac Child
“For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.” Honore de Balzac FoolIntelligencePassion
“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.” Honore de Balzac Care
“Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to other lives and other tempers, as woman's destiny requires, have for the most part a mania for making everything about them bend to them.” Honore de Balzac DestinyOldWoman
“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.” Honore de Balzac FriendsLife
“The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.” Honore de Balzac Life
“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.” Honore de Balzac LoveSufferingWoman
“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.” Honore de Balzac Love
“The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute.” Honore de Balzac MotherSilent
“When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.” Honore de Balzac
“Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.” Honore de Balzac AloneBeautyWomanChildren
“Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!” Honore de Balzac Mother
“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.” Honore de Balzac Father
