Honor de Balzac Quotes

I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity.

Honor de Balzac

A mother, who is really a mother, is never free.

Honor de Balzac

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

Honor de Balzac

Man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.

Honor de Balzac

When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.

Honor de Balzac

Love is the most melodious of all harmonies and the sentiment of love is innate. Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position of them, the timid keyboard, the fingering so changeful and capricious which befits it.

Honor de Balzac

Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.

Honor de Balzac

A widow has two tasks before her, whose duties clash: she is a mother, and yet she must exercise parental authority.

Honor de Balzac

Political liberty, the tranquility of a nation, nay, knowledge itself, are gifts on which destiny has laid a tax of blood!

Honor de Balzac

Our most cruel enemies are our nearest in blood!... Kings have neither brothers, nor sons, nor mothers.

Honor de Balzac

When religion and royalty are destroyed the people will attack the nobles; after the nobles, the rich.

Honor de Balzac

The passion of love is essentially selfish, while motherhood widens the circle of our feelings.

Honor de Balzac

The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.

Honor de Balzac

Like many widows, she came to the unwise decision of remarrying.

Honor de Balzac

Love in the abstract is not enough for a great man in poverty; he has need of its utmost devotion... She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered.

Honor de Balzac