836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

The greatest joy a petty soul can taste is to dupe a great soul and catch it in a snare.

The election of a deputy to the Legislature offers a noble and majestic spectacle comparable only to the delivery of a child. It involves the same efforts, the same impurities, the same laceration, and the same triumph.

To lese-majeste and contempt of court, we must add the crime of lese-million, that fearful indignity we visit on the rich when we expose the impotence of gold.

What is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood?

If we all said to people's faces what we say behind one another's backs, society would be impossible.

Journalists grow accustomed to seeing evil and they let it pass; they proceed to approve it, and they end by committing it themselves.

There are some women whose pregnancy would make some sly bachelor smile.

White hair often covers the head, but the heart that holds it is ever young.

Religious ecstasy is a madness of thought freed of its bodily bonds, whereas in the ecstasy of love, the forces of twin natures unite, blend and embrace one another.