Honoré de Balzac Quotes

Avoir sa belle-mère en province quand on demeure à Paris, et vice versa, est une de ces bonnes fortunes qui se rencontrent toujours trop rarement.

Man can start with aversion and end with love, but if he begins with love and comes round to aversion he will never get back to love.

Egy olasz hölgy, egyike ama isteni teremtményeknek, akik szöges ellentétei a párizsi nőknek, s akiket az Alpeseken innen mélységesen erkölcstelennek tartanának, francia regények olvasása közben így kiáltott fel:
– Nem értem, miért töltenek ezek a szegény szerelmesek annyi időt azzal, amit egy délelőtt is el lehet intézni!

Music is of two kinds: one petty, poor, second-rate, never varying, its base the hundred or so phrasings which all musicians understand, a babbling which is more or less pleasant, the life that most composers live.

Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.

However, she wouldn't be the first person to mistrust her nearest and dearest yet confide in the first stranger who comes along: a strange but true quirk of behaviour, whose root is easily traced to the human heart. Some people perhaps have nothing left to gain from those they live with; having revealed the emptiness of their souls, they secretly feel themselves to be judged with deserved severity; however, as they have a powerful craving for the flattery they need but lack, or a burning desire to appear to possess qualities they do not have, they hope to take by surprise the heart and esteem of those who are strangers to them, at the risk of one day falling from grace.

Misfortune is a stepping stone for genius, the baptismal font of Christians, treasure for the skillful man, an abyss for the feeble.

Le pouvoir est une action, et le principe électif est la discussion.Il n'y a pas de politique possible avec la discussion en permanence.

Though the human heart may have to pause for rest when climbing the heights of affection it rarely stops on the slippery slope of hatred.

Like many widows, she came to the unwise decision of remarrying.

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

Une veuve a deux tâches dont les obligations se contredisent : elle est mère et doit exercer la puissance paternelle.

La politesse cache très-imparfaitement l’égoïsme général.

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

In Paris, when certain people see you ready to set your foot in the stirrup, some pull your coat-tails, others loosen the buckle of the strap that you may fall and crack your skull; one wrenches off your horse's shoes, another steals your whip, and the least treacherous of them all is the man whom you see coming to fire his pistol at you point blank.