Honoré de Balzac - Père Goriot (1835)

11 Sourced Quotes

View all Honoré de Balzac Quotes
Man is no angel. He is sometimes more of a hypocrite and sometimes less, and then fools say that he has or has not principles.

Honoré de Balzac
"I shall succeed!" he said to himself. So says the gambler; so says the great captain; but the three words that have been the salvation of some few, have been the ruin of many more.

Honoré de Balzac
Our heart is a treasury; if you spend all its wealth at once you are ruined. We find it as difficult to forgive a person for displaying his feeling in all its nakedness as we do to forgive a man for being penniless.

Honoré de Balzac
"Temptations can be got rid of." "How?" "By yielding to them."

Honoré de Balzac
Man is imperfect. He is at some times more or less hypocritical than at others, and then simpletons say that his morality is high or low.

Honoré de Balzac
The secret of great fortunes with no apparent source is a forgotten crime.
Often misquoted as: Behind every great fortune there is a crime.

Honoré de Balzac
Is there any instinct more deeply implanted in the heart of man than the pride of protection, a protection which is constantly exerted for a fragile and defenceless creature?

Honoré de Balzac
The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.

Honoré de Balzac
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
Little minds find satisfaction for their feelings, good or bad, in little things.

Honoré de Balzac
One of the most detestable habits of Lilliputian minds is to find their own littleness in others.

Honoré de Balzac