836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    Thanks to the toleration preached by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century, the sorcerer is exempt from torture.

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  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    The press is like a woman: sublime when it lies, it will not let go until it has forced you to believe it. The public, like a foolish husband, always succumbs.

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  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    The greater a man's talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy.

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  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.

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  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    Woman is closer to angels than man because she knows how to mingle an infinite tenderness with the most absolute compassion.

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  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it; like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light.

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  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    One day, about the middle of July 1838, one of the carriages, lately introduced to Paris cabstands, and known as Milords, was driving down the Rue de l'Universite, conveying a stout man of middle height in the uniform of a captain of the National Guard.

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  • Author Honoré de Balzac
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    A naked woman is less dangerous than one who spreads her skirt skillfully to cover and exhibit everything at once.

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