836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Modern society includes three types of men who can never think very highly of the world--the priest, the physician, and the attorney-at-law. They all wear black, too, for are they not in mourning for every virtue and every illusion?

Love is the only way on which even the dim-witted reaches certain heights.

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

Nothing is unimportant to a man plunged in despair. He is as credulous as a criminal sentenced to death who listens to a lunatic raving to him about how he can escape through the keyhole.

Men are such dupes by choice, that he who would impose upon others never need be at a loss to find ready victims.

Vice is perhaps a desire to learn everything.

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.

Can you find a man who loves the occupation that provides him with a livelihood? Professions are like marriages; we end by feeling only their inconveniences.

The mind, too, has its regimen. It needs gymnastics, just like the body does.