Inspiring Quotes by Honore de Balzac - Page 2

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"A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way"

"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"

"A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists"

"A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning"

"A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity"

"The man whose action habitually bears the stamp of his mind is a genius, but the greatest genius is not always equal to himself, or he would cease to be human"

"What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?"

"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"

"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"

"Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other"

"Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to other lives and other tempers, as woman's destiny requires, have for the most part a mania for making everything about them bend to them"

"If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye"

"When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa"

"Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin"

"It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time"

"The country is provincial; it becomes ridiculous when it tries to ape Paris"

"No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman"

"In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls"

"The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute"

"Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity"

"To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure"

"Thought is a key to all treasures; the miser's gains are ours without his cares. Thus I have soared above this world, where my enjoyment have been intellectual joys"

"Those who spend too fast never grow rich"

"There are some women whose pregnancy would make some sly bachelor smile"

"The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one"

"The most virtuous women have something within them, something that is never chaste"

"Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation"

"Lovers have a way of using this word, nothing, which implies exactly the opposite"

"Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue"

"Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart"

"Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true"

"Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established"

"Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!"

"Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless"

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