836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

True love rules especially through memory.

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, ...

A lui la foi, a' elle le doute, a' elle le fardeau le plus lourd: la femme ne souffre-t-elle pas toujours pour deux? For him, faith; for her, doubt and for her theheavier load: does not the woman always suffer for both?

Our energies are often stimulated by the necessity of supporting a being weaker than ourselves.

The secret of the nobility and beauty of great ladies lies in the art with which they can shed their veils. In such situations, they become like ancient statues. If they kept the merest scarf on, they would be lewd. Your bourgeois woman will always try to cover her nakedness.

True love is mixed up with birdlike squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, apiece of flattery to the dupe's conceit.

I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.

We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.

Un homme n'a jamais pu e lever sa ma|"tresse jusqu'a' lui; mais une femme place toujours son amant aussi haut qu'elle. A man can never elevate his mistress to his rank, but a woman can always place her lover as high as she.