The first thing necessary to win the heart of a woman is opportunity. — Honore de Balzac Feminism Copy Share Image
Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings. — Honore de Balzac Education Copy Share Image
Priests, magistrates and ladies never quite take off their gowns. — Honore de Balzac Gowns Copy Share Image
A society of atheists would immediately invent a religion. — Honore de Balzac Atheism Copy Share Image
At fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist: a woman is all promise. — Honore de Balzac Beauty Copy Share Image
Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of… — Honore de Balzac Iron Copy Share Image
How natural it is to destroy what we cannot possess, to deny what we do not understand, and to insult what we… — Honore de Balzac Deny Copy Share Image
“If only I could bear all your sorrows for you! . . . Ah! you were so happy when you were little… — Honoré de Balzac Grief Copy Share Image
“This costume, utterly uncouth, seemed to have been invented as a final test of grace, and to show that there was nothing… — Honoré de Balzac Fashion Copy Share Image
Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong,… — Honore de Balzac Add Copy Share Image
If certain women walk straight into adultery, there are many others who cling to numerous hopes, and commit sin only after wandering… — Honore De Balzac Adultery Copy Share Image
Sometimes, one gesture comprises an entire drama, the accent of one word ruins an entire existence, and the indifference of one glance… — Honore de Balzac Accents Copy Share Image
Everything is bilateral in the domain of thought. Ideas are binary. Janus is the myth of criticism and the symbol of genius.… — Honore de Balzac Binary Copy Share Image
When a woman wants to betray her husband, her actions are almost invariably studied but they are never reasoned. — Honore de Balzac Action Copy Share Image
Music is of two kinds: one petty, poor, second-rate, never varying, its base the hundred or so phrasings which all musicians understand,… — Honore de Balzac Babbling Copy Share Image
For pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure? Who could determine the point where pleasure becomes pain, where pain is still a… — Honore de Balzac Annoying Copy Share Image
Events are never absolute, their outcome depends entirely upon the individual. Misfortune is a stepping stone for a genius, a piscina for… — Honore de Balzac Absolutes Copy Share Image
If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events… — Honore de Balzac Events Copy Share Image
“Látta feje fölött elrepülni a démont, akit oly könnyű angyalnak nézni, a csillogó szárnyú sátánt, aki drágaköveket hajigál, aranynyilait a paloták homlokzatára… — Honoré de Balzac Hungarian Copy Share Image
A grass blade believes that men build palaces for it to grow in. Grass wedges its way between the closest blocks of… — Honore de Balzac Behinds Copy Share Image
In all lands, sailors form a race apart. They profess a congenital contempt for landlubbers. As for the tradesman, he understands nothing… — Honore de Balzac Care Copy Share Image
Modern society includes three types of men who can never think very highly of the world--the priest, the physician, and the attorney-at-law.… — Honore de Balzac Attorney Copy Share Image
“Here comes Mamma Vauquerr, fair as a starrr; and strung up like a bunch of carrots. Aren't we suffocating ourselves a wee… — Honoré de Balzac Comedie Copy Share Image
A sick man, surrounded by those who love him, nursed by those who wish earnestly that he should live, will recover (all… — Honore de Balzac Ardent Copy Share Image
“This tragic short story was written in 1829 and published in 1830 in La Mode, followed by another edition in the Gosselin… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
“Emile was a journalist who had acquired more reputation by doing nothing than others from a successful productive career. A bold, biting,… — Honoré de Balzac Old man Copy Share Image
This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at… — Honore de Balzac Acquaintance Copy Share Image
If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the… — Honore de Balzac Art Copy Share Image
“A valley full of genuine suffering, and of joys that often turn out to be false, and so incredibly tumultuous that it… — Honoré de Balzac Grief 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 Ark Copy Share Image
