“Whoever wishes to rise above the common level must be prepared for a great struggle and recoil before no obstacle. A great writer is just simply a martyr whom the stake cannot kill.” — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
“Conscience, my dear, is a kind of stick that everyone picks up to thrash his neighbor with, but one he never uses against himself.” — Honoré 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 Image
“You have broken the ice, though you have not even scratched its glossy surface: you have placed your hand upon the croup of the most ferocious and savage, the most wakeful and clear-sighted, the most restless, the swiftest, the most jealous, the most ardent and violent, the simplest and most elegant, the most unreasonable, the most watchful chimera 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 Image
My writing table has seen all my wretchedness, knows all my plans, has overheard all my thoughts. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
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 Image
A married woman is a slave you must know how to seat upon a throne. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen rests, nevertheless, on the material world;… — 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 Image
