Honore De Balzac
22 quotations
All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.
We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.
Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
You may imitate, but never counterfeit.
I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race.
To promote laughter without joining in it greatly heightens the effect.
The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
A woman must be a genius to create a good husband.
Modesty is the conscience of the body.
Finance, like time, devours its own children.
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.
Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.
In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.
Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
Most people of action are inclined to fatalism and most of thought believe in providence.
Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.