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Honore de Balzac Quotes - Page 23

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When attempted self-destruction does not cure a man of life, it cures him of voluntary death.

When attempted self-destruction does not cure a man of life, it cures him of voluntary death.

Honore de Balzac
Men, Self, Doe

Love based upon money and vanity forms the most stubborn of passions.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Passion, Vanity

Love and work have the virtues of making a man pretty indifferent to anything else.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Work, Men

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

Honore de Balzac
Power, Political, Principles

Society is no more indulgent than was the God of Genesis.

Honore de Balzac
Society, Genesis, Indulgence

By dint of making sacrifices, a man grows interested in the person who exacts them. Great ladies, like courtesans, know this truth by instinct.

Honore de Balzac
Sacrifice, Men, Instinct

A knowledge of mankind and of things that surround us gives us that second education which proves far move valuable than our first because it alone turns out a truly accomplished man.

Honore de Balzac
Moving, Knowledge, Men

Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters.

Honore de Balzac
Character, Men, Two

At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist; there can only be promise of the coming woman.

Honore de Balzac
Beauty, Promise, Literature
"A Daughter of Eve". Book by Honoré de Balzac, 1839.

The pleasures of love proceed successively from a distich to a quatrain, from a quatrain to a sonnet, from a sonnet to a ballad, from a ballad to an ode, from an ode to a cantata, and from a cantata to a dithyramb. A husband who begins with the dithyramb is a fool.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Husband, Odes

Too great a display of delicacy can and does sometimes infringe upon de-cency.

Honore de Balzac
Doe, Delicacy, Sometimes

In the medical profession a horse and carriage are more necessary than any scientific knowledge.

Honore de Balzac
Horse, Knowledge, Medicine

The monotony of provincial life attracts the attention of people to the kitchen. You do not dine as luxuriously in the provinces as in Paris, but you dine better, because the dishes serve you are the result of mediation and study.

Honore de Balzac
Paris, People, Kitchen

He's got his dog trained so that it only does it on newspapers. The trouble is it does it when he's reading the blasted things.

Honore de Balzac
Funny, Dog, Reading

Poets and men of action differ: the former yield to their feelings in order to reproduce them in lively colors, and therefore judge only ex post facto; the latter feel and judge at one and the same time.

Honore de Balzac
Men, Yield, Order

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 enjoyments have been intellectual joys.

Honore de Balzac
Keys, Joy, Intellectual
"The Wild Ass's Skin". Book by Honoré de Balzac, 1831.

Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life's duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.

Honore de Balzac
Mother, Children, Character
Honore de Balzac (2011). “Letters of Two Brides”, p.186, The Floating Press

When an intelligent man reaches the point of inviting self-explanation and offers surrendering the key to his heart, he is assuredly riding a drunken horse.

Honore de Balzac
Horse, Heart, Intelligent

Does not any limit imposed upon one inspire a desire to go beyond it? Does not our keenest suffering arise when our free will is crossed?

Honore de Balzac
Inspire, Suffering, Desire

Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.

Honore de Balzac
Simplicity, Inspire, Disrespect

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.

Honore de Balzac
Humility, Anti Bullying, Suffering
Honore de Balzac, Pierre F. Limouzy (1999). “CliffsNotes on Balzac's Pere Goriot”, p.7, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A husband can commit no greater blunder than to discuss his wife, if she is virtuous, with his mistress; unless it be to mention his mistress, if she is beautiful, to his wife.

Honore de Balzac
Beautiful, Husband, Mistake

To get a traveling salesman drunk is the height of impossibility.

Honore de Balzac
Drunk, Height, Salesman

A grass blade believes that men build palaces for it to grow in. Grass wedges its way between the closest blocks of marble and it brings them down. This power of feeble life which can creep in anywhere is greater than that of the mighty behind their cannons.

Honore de Balzac
Block, Believe, Men

The wounds of self-love turn incurable when the oxide of self-love gets into them.

Honore de Balzac
Self, Self Love, Turns

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