Honore De Balzac Quotes

To provoke laughter without joining in it greatly heightens the effect.

Envy is the most stupid of vices for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.

If we could but paint with the hand as we see with the eye!

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion history romance and art would be useless.

Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions envy is only moved to malice.

True love is eternal infinite and always like itself. It is equal and pure without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.

All happiness depends on courage and work. I have had many periods of wretchedness but with energy and above all with illusions I pulled through them all.

Believe everything you hear said of the world nothing is too impossibly bad.

Our worst misfortunes never happen and most miseries lie in anticipation.

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

The most virtuous women have something within them, something that is never chaste.

Power is action the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion it is a joy of every moment.

A young bride is like a plucked flower but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over.