Quotes

“Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.” Honore de Balzac

“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.” Honore de Balzac

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

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

“Finance, like time, devours its own children.” Honore de Balzac

“Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.” Honore de Balzac

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

“One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.” Honore de Balzac

“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.” Honore de Balzac

“What is art? Nature concentrated.” Honore de Balzac

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

“Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.” Honore de Balzac

“The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.” Honore de Balzac

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

“Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!” Honore de Balzac

“Those who spend too fast never grow rich.” Honore de Balzac

“The habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the countenance.” Honore de Balzac

“Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?” Honore de Balzac

“Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.” Honore de Balzac

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

“Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.” Honore de Balzac

“To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.” Honore de Balzac

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

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

“Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love.” Honore de Balzac

“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.” Honore de Balzac

“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.” Honore de Balzac

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

“The country is provincial; it becomes ridiculous when it tries to ape Paris.” Honore de Balzac

“Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.” Honore de Balzac