836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Sects differ more in name than tenets.

The duration of a couple's passion is in proportion to the woman's original resistance or to the obstacles that social hazards have placed in the way of her happiness.

A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers.

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.

To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote herself, will always be the text of the life of woman.

Woman is stronger by virtue of her feelings than man by virtue of his power.

Men are so made that they can resist sound argument, and yet yield to a glance.

Old men are prone to invest the futures of young men with their own past sorrows.

Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy.