Art's greatest efforts are invariably a timid counterfeit of Nature. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can turn it into a fact.” — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
God is the poet; men are but the actors. The great dramas of earth were written in heaven. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“Our Father in heaven is surely on the side of fathers on earth who love their children.” — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Love is precisely to the moral nature what the sun is to the earth. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility,… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Nature endows woman alternately with a particular strength which helps her to suffer and a weakness which counsels her to be resigned. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Where some one else's welfare is concerned, a young girl becomes as ingenious as a thief. Guileless where she herself is in… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Nature knows nothing but solid bodies; your science deals only with combinations of surfaces. And so nature constantly gives the lie to… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one thing I did learn thoroughly — I knew that I… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
Man judges of nature in relation to itself; the angelic spirit judges of it in relation to heaven. In short, to the… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Science is the language of the temporal world; love is that of the spiritual world. Man, indeed, describes more than he explains;… — Honoré De Balzac Copy Share Image
White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
The love of nature is the only love that does not deceive human hopes. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
God is the author, men are only the players. These grand pieces which are played upon earth have been composed in heaven. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Marriage is an institution necessary to the maintenance of society but contrary to the laws of nature. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Equality may be a right, but no power on earth can convert it into fact. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Love is like some fresh spring, first a stream and then a river, changing its aspect and its nature as it flows… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
If we study Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we cannot fail to recognize the possibility of… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
As soon as man seeks to penetrate the secrets of Nature--in which nothing is secret and it is but a question of… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
One of the glories of society is to have created woman where Nature had made only a female; to have created a… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
The weakest being on earth can accomplish feats of strength. The frailest urchin will ring every doorbell on the street in arctic… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
To forget is the great secret of strong creative natures; to forget is the way nature herself who knows no past and… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
When one of those skirt-bearing animals has set herself up above all by permitting herself to be deified, no power on earth… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“The joy of those noisy and splendid groups was visible; that of Ginevra and Luigi was buried in their bosom. On one… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
“He will show you how, during the springtime of life, illusions, innocent hopes, silver threads of gossamer, descend from heaven and return… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Religious ecstasy is a madness of thought freed of its bodily bonds, whereas in the ecstasy of love, the forces of twin… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“Oh, my friend, when you love, love a woman whom you are sure that you can love always. Never forsake a woman.” — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share
“You have broken the ice, though you have not even scratched its glossy surface: you have placed your hand upon the croup of the… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share
It is quite right what they say: the three most beautiful sights in the world are a ship in full sail, a galloping horse,… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
My writing table has seen all my wretchedness, knows all my plans, has overheard all my thoughts. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
Foppery, being the chronic condition of women, is not so much noticed as it is when it breaks out on the person of the… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
Rich men are resolved to be astonished at nothing. When they see a masterpiece, they must needs at one glance recognize some flaw to… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
All men can bear a familiar, definite misfortune better than the cruel alternations of a fate which, from one moment to another, brings excessive… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
The mind, too, has its regimen. It needs gymnastics, just like the body does. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong, so the… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share
