Authors:

Honore de Balzac Quotes - Page 14

All Quotes Affection Age Ambition Army Art Beauty Character Children Coffee Compassion Conscience Country Crime Desire Doubt Drama Earth Effort Energy Envy Evil Failing Fame Family Fashion Fate Feelings Fighting Forgiveness Funny Generosity Genius Giving Glory Gold Gratitude Grief Happiness Hate Hatred Heart Heaven History Home House Human Nature Husband Hypocrisy Imagination Innocence Inspirational Intuition Jealousy Joy Judging Labor Liberty Life Literature Loss Love Lying Marriage Memories Modesty Mom Money Motherhood Nature Pain Passion Past Perfection Pleasure Poetry Poverty Power Praise Pride Religion Science Self Love Silence Simplicity Sin Society Solitude Sorrow Soul Spirituality Spring Struggle Study Stupidity Suffering Talent True Love Twins Victory Virtue Vision Weakness Wealth Wife Wine Winning Work Writing
One of the glories of society is to have created woman where Nature had made only a female; to have created a continuity of desire where Nature thought only of perpetuating the species; and, in fine, to have invented

One of the glories of society is to have created woman where Nature had made only a female; to have created a continuity of desire where Nature thought only of perpetuating the species; and, in fine, to have invented love.

Honore de Balzac
Women, Desire, Female

The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, forgotten because it was properly done.

Honore de Balzac
Business, Political, Secret

When there is an old maid in the house, a watchdog is unnecessary.

Honore de Balzac
Funny, Dog, House

In a husband, there is only a man; in a married woman, there is a man, a father, a mother and a woman.

Honore de Balzac
Mother, Husband, Father
"Analytical Studies".

Love is the only passion which suffers neither past nor future.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Passion, Past

Authentic love always assumes the mystery of modesty, even in its expression, because actions speak louder than words. Unlike a feigned love, it feels no need to set a conflagration.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Expression, Actions Speak Louder Than Words

I yield to your wishes. It is the privilege of the women whom we love more than they love us to make the men who love them ignore the ordinary rules of common-sense.

Honore de Balzac
Men, Yield, Common Sense
Honore de Balzac (2011). “The Lily of the Valley”, p.5, The Floating Press

I am not deep, but I am very wide.

Honore de Balzac
Wide
Letter to Clara Carrara-Spinelli Maffei, Oct. 1837

A wife is property that one acquires by contract, she is transferable, because possession of her requires title; in fact, woman is, so to speak, only man's appendage; consequently, slice, cut, clip her, you have all rights to her.

Honore de Balzac
Marriage, Women, Cutting

Do you know how a man makes his way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful corruption. You must either cut your way through these masses of men like a cannon ball, or steal among them like a plague.

Honore de Balzac
Cutting, Men, Balls
Honore de Balzac (2015). “Father Goriot”, p.102, Library of Alexandria

Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.

Honore de Balzac
Jealousy, Stupid, Envy

To speak of love is to make love.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Love Is, Making Love
Honore De Balzac (2005). “The Physiology of Marriage and Pierre Grassou”, p.186, Cosimo, Inc.

True love is mixed up with birdlike squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, apiece of flattery to the dupe's conceit.

Honore de Balzac
Love Is, Dupes, Flattery
Honore de Balzac (2014). “Poor Relations: Cousin Betty and Cousin Pons”, p.200, The Floating Press

A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life

Honore de Balzac
Night, Mad, Spy
Honore de Balzac (2014). “The Elixir of Life”, p.5, The Floating Press

It's not enough to be a good person. You also have to show it.

Honore de Balzac
Good Person, Enough, Shows

She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered.

Honore de Balzac
Heart, Pride, Wife
Honore de Balzac (2011). “The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin”, p.97, The Floating Press

Our most natural feelings are those we are loath to confess, and fatuity is among them.

Honore de Balzac
Feelings, Natural, Natural Feelings

Rich men are resolved to be astonished at nothing. When they see a masterpiece, they must needs at one glance recognize some flaw to dispense them from admiration, a vulgar emotion.

Honore de Balzac
Men, Needs, Emotion

You cannot pluck love out of your heart as you would pull a tooth.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Heart, Teeth

Prostitution and robbery are two living protests, respectively female and male, made by the natural state against the social state.

Honore de Balzac
Two, Males, Female

We are scarcely apt to berate the source of enjoyment.

Honore de Balzac
Source, Enjoyment

The fashions we call English in Paris are French in London, and vice versa. Franco-British hostility vanishes when it comes to questions of words and clothing. God save the King is a tune composed by Lully for a chorus in a play by Racine.

Honore de Balzac
Fashion, Kings, Play

Stupidity assumes two forms, it speaks or is silent. Mute stupidity is bearable.

Honore de Balzac
Two, Stupidity, Assuming

When in Turkey, do as the turkeys do.

Honore de Balzac
Turkeys

Finance, like time, devours its own children.

Honore de Balzac
Time, Money, Children
Honore de Balzac (2014). “The Firm of Nucingen”, p.19, The Floating Press

You May Also Like: