Honore de Balzac Quotes
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.
Honore de Balzac
Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.
Honore de Balzac
The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
Honore de Balzac
Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.
Honore de Balzac
The duration of passion is proportionate with the original resistance of the woman.
Honore de Balzac
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
Honore de Balzac
A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way.
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
We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.
Honore de Balzac
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
The most virtuous women have something within them, something that is never chaste.
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
Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.
Honore de Balzac
All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
Honore de Balzac
First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.
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
A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning.
Honore de Balzac
A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.
Honore de Balzac
What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?
Honore de Balzac
Our most bitter enemies are our own kith and kin. Kings have no brothers, no sons, no mother!
Honore de Balzac
Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady's window.
Honore de Balzac
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
Honore de Balzac
A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over.
Honore de Balzac
A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
Honore de Balzac
Love or hatred must constantly increase between two persons who are always together; every moment fresh reasons are found for loving or hating better.
Honore de Balzac
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
Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.
Honore de Balzac
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