Knows Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

21 Knows quotes by Honoré de Balzac

All Knows quotes Honoré de Balzac’s page

Balzac’s musings on knowing carry the weight of his sprawling social panoramas. These twenty‑one snippets reveal his knack for exposing the hidden motives that drive his characters and, by extension, society.

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He who best knows the world will love it least.

Honore de Balzac

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Love knows nothing of modesty.

Honore de Balzac

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My writing table has seen all my wretchedness, knows all my plans, has overheard all my thoughts.

Honore de Balzac

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Do you know what is the hardest thing in life? To make a choice.

Honore de Balzac

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A married woman is a slave you must know how to seat upon a throne.

Honore de Balzac

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True lovers know how trifling a thing is money yet how difficult to blend with love!

Honore de Balzac

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In France we can cauterize wounds but we do not yet know any remedy for the injuries inflicted by a bon mot.

Honore de Balzac

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Does anyone know where these gondolas of Paris come from? [Fr., Ne sait on pas ou viennent ces gondoles Parisiennes?]

Honore de Balzac

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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

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

Honore de Balzac

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Like most young people, these two attributed to the world their own intelligence and virtues. Youth who knows no failure has no…

Honore de Balzac

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Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them,…

Honore de Balzac

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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

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No woman has ever existed who did not know perfectly well in her heart what to expect from the superiority or inferiority…

Honore de Balzac

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All human beings go through a previous life... Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can…

Honore de Balzac

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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

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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

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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

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One admirable trait in women is their lack of illusions about themselves. They never reason about their most blameworthy actions; their feelings…

Honore de Balzac

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Genius is answerable only to itself; it is the sole judge of the means, since it alone knows the end; thus genius…

Honore de Balzac

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Woman is closer to angels than man because she knows how to mingle an infinite tenderness with the most absolute compassion.

Honore de Balzac

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More by Honoré de Balzac

“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

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“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

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In a world of hunchbacks, a fine figure becomes a monstrosity.

Honore de Balzac

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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

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My writing table has seen all my wretchedness, knows all my plans, has overheard all my thoughts.

Honore de Balzac

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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

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A married woman is a slave you must know how to seat upon a throne.

Honore de Balzac

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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

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I am a galley slave to pen and ink.

Honore de Balzac

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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

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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

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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

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The mind, too, has its regimen. It needs gymnastics, just like the body does.

Honore de Balzac

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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

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All human power is a compound of time and patience.

Honore de Balzac

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