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Honoré de Balzac Quotes
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At thirty years a woman asks her lover to give her back the esteem she has forfeited for his sake; she lives only for him, her thoughts are full of his future, he must have a great career, she bids him make it glorious; she can obey, entreat, command, humble herself, or rise in pride; times without number she brings comfort when a young girl can only make moan.
Honoré de Balzac
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Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.
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Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.
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If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.
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Where some one else's welfare is concerned, a young girl becomes as ingenious as a thief. Guileless where she herself is in question, and full of foresight for me,-she is like a heavenly angel forgiving the strange incomprehensible sins of earth.
Honoré de Balzac
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You are dressed so coquettishly to talk about chemistry.
Honoré de Balzac
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Little minds find satisfaction for their feelings, good or bad, in little things.
Honoré de Balzac
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Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.
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If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man's life would only serve to make a chronological table-a fool's notion of history.
Honoré de Balzac
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All poetry like every work of art proceeds from a swift vision of things.
Honoré de Balzac
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White hair often covers the head, but the heart that holds it is ever young.
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True love is mixed up with birdlike squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, apiece of flattery to the dupe's conceit.
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The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.
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Let us leave the cure of public evils to those quacks, the statesmen.
Honoré de Balzac
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You cannot pluck love out of your heart as you would pull a tooth.
Honoré de Balzac
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A man may and ought to pride himself more on his will than on his talent.
Honoré de Balzac
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At fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist: a woman is all promise.
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One of the most detestable habits of Lilliputian minds is to find their own littleness in others.
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Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life's duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.
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Sometimes at the best moments a single word or a look is enough.'
Honoré de Balzac
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I declare, on my soul and conscience, that the attainment of power, or of a great name in literature, seemed to me an easier victory than a success with some young, witty, and gracious lady of high degree.
Honoré de Balzac
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No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.
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Quote of the day
Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Robert F. Kennedy
Honoré de Balzac
Born:
May 20, 1799
Died:
August 18, 1850
(aged 51)
Bio:
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright.
Known for:
Père Goriot (1835)
Eugénie Grandet (1833)
Cousin Bette (1846)
Illusions perdues (1837)
Colonel Chabert (1832)
Most used words:
love
woman
man
women
life
nature
heart
reason
husband
human
marriage
time
god
happiness
heaven
Honoré de Balzac on Wikipedia
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