Honor� de Balzac
France
20 May 1799 // 18 Aug 1850
Writer
20 May 1799 // 18 Aug 1850
Writer
Quotes
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In the medical profession a horse and carriage are more necessary than any scientific knowledge
In the first woman we love, we love everything. Growing older, we love the woman only
In love, what a woman mistakes for disgust is actually clearsightedness. If she does not admire a man, she scorns him
In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or not, become the judges of their parents
In family life people almost always adjust themselves to misfortune. They make a bed of it and hope makes them accept that bed, however hard it is
In a world of hunchbacks, a fine figure becomes a monstrosity
How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!
How natural it is to destroy what we cannot possess, to deny what we do not understand, and to insult what we envy!
How can we explain the perpetuity of envy -- a vice which yields no return?
Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong, so the one we hate can do no right
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On Anger: "For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind."
Essays
Essays
On Destiny: "Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today."
Human, All Too Human
Human, All Too Human
On Friendship: "A crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love."
Essays
Essays