Honoré de Balzac Quotes

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

White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it; like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light.

Little minds need to practise despotism to relieve their nerves, just as great souls thirst for equality in friendship to exercise their hearts. Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their temperaments drive them. Add to this the propulsion of self-interest and you may read the enigma of most social matters.

It is easier to be a lover than a husband, for the same reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day, than to say bright things from time to time.

The word 'love,' used in connection with the reproduction of our species, is the most odious blasphemy taught in our times.

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

The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.

I declare, on my soul and conscience, that the attainment of power, or of a great name in literature, seemed to me an easier victory than a success with some young, witty, and gracious lady of high degree.

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

Hélas! Nous ne manquons jamais d'argent pour nos caprices, nous ne discutons que le prix des choses utiles ou nécessaires; nous jetons l'or avec insouciance à des danseuses, et nous marchandons un ouvrier dont la famille affamée attend la paiement d'un mémoire. Combien de gens ont un habit de cent francs, un diamant à la pomme de leur canne, et dinent à vingt-cinque sous? Il semble que nous n'achetions jamais assez chèrementles plaisirs de la vanité

L'étude prête une sorte de magie à tout ce qui nous environne.

Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.

When women love, they forgive everything, even our crimes; when they do not love, they cannot forgive anything, not even our virtues.

Cruelty and fear shake hands together. An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence.

Un pays est fort quand il se compose de familles riches, dont tous les membres sont intéressés à la défense du trésor commun : trésor d’argent, de gloire, de priviléges, de jouissances ; il est faible quand il se compose d’individus non solidaires, auxquels il importe peu d’obéir à sept hommes ou à un seul, à un Russe ou à un Corse, pourvu que chaque individu garde son champ ; et ce malheureux égoïste ne voit pas qu’un jour on le lui ôtera.