Honoré de Balzac Quotes

But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.

Political liberty, the tranquility of a nation, nay, knowledge itself, are gifts on which destiny has laid a tax of blood!

Le propre d’un grand homme est de dérouter les calculs ordinaires. Il est sublime et attendrissant, naïf et gigantesque.

It is certain that during the sixteenth century, and the years that preceded and followed it, poisoning was brought to a perfection unknown to modern chemistry, as history itself will prove. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was, at this period, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are now lost.

Behind every great fortune, there is a crime.

We may scale cliffs; but to tramp forever in the mud is another thing.

Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.

I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.

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.

L’amour est profondément égoïste, tandis que la maternité tend à multiplier nos sentiments.

La bonté n'est pas sans écueils : on l'attribue au caractère, on veut rarement y reconnaître les efforts secrets d'une belle âme, tandis qu'on récompense les gens méchants du mal qu'ils ne font pas.

The provinces are provinces; they are only ridiculous when they mimic Paris.

"Je réussirai !" Le mot du joueur, du grand capitaine, mot fataliste qui perd plus d'hommes qu'il n'en sauve.

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

I should like one of these days to be so well known, so popular, so celebrated, so famous, that it would permit me to break wind in society, and society would think it a most natural thing.