836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.

If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.

Power does not consist in striking with force or with frequency, but in striking true.

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.

The glutton is much more than an animal and much less than a man.

Necessity is the spur of genius.

In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.

Love is the poetry of the senses.

All genuinely noble women prefer truth to falsehood. As the Russians with their Czar, they are unwilling to see their idol degraded; they want to be proud of the domination they accept.