L'homme qui peut empreindre perpétuellement la pensée dans le fait est un homme de génie ; mais l'homme qui a le plus de génie ne le déploie pas à to… - Honoré de Balzac

I haven't any objection to your thoroughly despising me, right now, because I'm convinced you'll come to love me. You'll find I have some tremendous abysses, some huge, focused emotions that fools think of as vices, but you'll never find me lazy, and you'll never find me ungrateful. In a word, I'm neither a pawn nor a bishop, my young friend, but a castle.

Trust no one until you are very sure of the heart to which you open your heart. Learn to mistrust every one; take every precaution for the sake of the love which does not exist as yet.

A grocer is drawn to his business by an attracting force quite equal to the repelling force which drives artists away from it. We do not sufficiently study the social potentialities which make up the various vocations of life. It would be interesting to know what determines one man to be a stationer rather than a baker; since, in our day, sons are not compelled to follow the calling of their fathers, as they were among the Egyptians.