Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your… — Honore de Balzac Art Copy Share Image
Poets and men of action differ: the former yield to their feelings in order to reproduce them in lively colors, and therefore… — Honore de Balzac Action Copy Share Image
Emulation is not rivalry. Emulation is the child of ambition; rivalry is the unlovable daughter of envy. — Honore de Balzac Ambition Copy Share Image
A naked woman is less dangerous than one who spreads her skirt skillfully to cover and exhibit everything at once. — Honore de Balzac Dangerous Copy Share Image
Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps. — Honore de Balzac Human nature Copy Share Image
In France everything is a matter for jest. People make quips about the scaffold, about Napoleon's defeat on the banks of The… — Honore de Balzac Barricades Copy Share Image
On the moral plane, true friends enjoy the same protection as the sense of smell confers upon dogs. They scent the sorrow… — Honore de Balzac Causes Copy Share Image
Imaginative, sanguine men will never recognize that in negotiations the most dangerous moment of all is when everything is moving according to… — Honore de Balzac Dangerous Copy Share Image
From the manner in which a woman draws her thread at every stitch of her needlework, any other woman can surmise her… — Honore de Balzac Draws Copy Share Image
Love endows us with a sort of personal religion; we respect another live within ourselves. — Honore de Balzac Love Copy Share Image
Women? In order to realize how far these charming creatures we idealize can carry their cruelty, we must see them among themselves! — Honore de Balzac Animals Copy Share Image
Intuition, like the rays of the sun, acts only in an inflexibly straight line; it can guess right only on condition of… — Honore de Balzac Chance Copy Share Image
An ounce of courage will go farther with women than a pound of timidity. — Honore de Balzac Courage Copy Share Image
“Will anyone understand it outside Paris? That is open to doubt. The special features of this scene, full of local colour and… — Honoré de Balzac Copy Share Image
A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists. — Honore de Balzac Art Copy Share Image
When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the… — Honore de Balzac Fall 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 Love Copy Share Image
An ugly woman, married to King Henry VIII, would have defied the axe and daunted her husband's infidelities. — Honore de Balzac Henry v Copy Share Image
Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole. — Honore de Balzac Bottom Copy Share Image
Kindness steers no easy course. Attributing it to character, we seldom recognize the secret efforts of a noble heart, whereas we reward… — Honore de Balzac Character Copy Share Image
Hope is a memory that desires, the memory is a memory that has enjoyed. — Honore de Balzac Desire Copy Share Image
Le mariage doit incessamment combattre un monstre qui de v ore tout: l'habitude. Marriage should always combat the monster that devours everything:… — Honore de Balzac Combat Copy Share Image
The fame of surgeons resembles the fame of actors, who live only during their lifetime and whose talent is no longer appreciable… — Honore de Balzac Actors Copy Share Image
A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over. — Honore de Balzac Flower Copy Share Image
