For young people always begin by loving exaggeration, that infirmity of noble minds. — 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
Love is precisely to the moral nature what the sun is to the earth. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Lovers have a way of using this word, nothing, which implies exactly the opposite. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Women are tenacious, and all of them should be tenacious of respect; without esteem they cannot exist; esteem is the first demand… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Self-love is as protective as the Deity; Disenchantment is as perspicacious as a surgeon; Experience is as provident as a mother. Such… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Love is not only a feeling, it is also an art. A simple word, a sensitive precaution, a mere nothing reveal to… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Nowhere but in France are people so strictly observant of great matters and so disdainfully indulgent about small ones. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
At thirty years a woman asks her lover to give her back the esteem she has forfeited for his sake; she lives… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“Love is the most melodious of all harmonies and the sentiment of love is innate. Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure,… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“I haven't any objection to your thoroughly despising me, right now, because I'm convinced you'll come to love me. You'll find I… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves! — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Though your vulgarian does not readily admit that feelings can change overnight, certainly two lovers often part far more abruptly than they… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Authentic love always assumes the mystery of modesty, even in its expression, because actions speak louder than words. Unlike a feigned love,… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
In love, what a woman mistakes for disgust is actually clearsightedness. If she does not admire a man, she scorns him. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“The words came from him like a sob, a hoarse sound like the death rattle of a dying man; it seemed indeed… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
When she lives at his palace, the maiden niece of a bishop can pass for a respectable woman because, if she has… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Nothing can afford a woman greater pleasure than to hear tender words of love. The strictest, most devout woman will listen even… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Un mari, comme un gouvernement, ne doit jamais avouer de faute. A husband, like a government, never needs to admit a fault. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
A letter is a soul, so faithful an echo of the speaking voice that to the sensitive it is among the richest… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Nos beaux sentiments ne sont-ils pas les poe sies de la volonte ? Aren't our best feelings poetry of the will? — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“True love is eternal, infinite and always like itself. It's always equal and pure. Without violent demonstrations: It is seen with white… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Love, according to our contemporary poets, is a privilege which two beings confer upon one another, whereby they may mutually cause one… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Like hunger, physical love is a necessity. But man's appetite for amour is never so regular or so sustained as his appetite… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
What makes friendship indissolute and what doubles its charms is a feeling we find lacking in love: I mean certitude. — 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
Le bonheur engloutit nos forces, comme le malheur e teint nos vertus. Happiness engulfs our strength, just as misfortune extinguishes our virtues. — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
“The word 'love,' used in connection with the reproduction of our species, is the most odious blasphemy taught in our times.” — Honoré de Balzac 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 Copy Share Image
“Some sentiment other than love united these two beings, and inspired with mutual anxiety their movements and their thoughts. Misery is, perhaps,… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
Love or hatred must constantly increase between two persons who are always together; every moment fresh reasons are found for loving or… — 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 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… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
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… — Honore de Balzac Copy Share Image
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
