836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Un mari, comme un gouvernement, ne doit jamais avouer de faute. A husband, like a government, never needs to admit a fault.

Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron.

Marriage is a fight to the death. Before contracting it, the two parties concerned implore the benediction of Heaven because to promise to love each other forever is the rashest of enterprises.

When will conventional good manners become attractive? When will ladies of fashion exhibit their shoulders a little less and their affability and wit a little more?

Do you know how a man makes his way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful corruption. You must either cut your way through these masses of men like a cannon ball, or steal among them like a plague.

The life of a man who deliberately runs through his fortune often becomes a business speculation; his friends, his pleasures, patrons, and acquaintances are his capital.

Virtue is always too much of a piece and too ignorant of those shades of feeling and of temperament that enable us to squint when we are placed in a false position.

Paris, like every pretty woman, is subject to inexplicable whims of beauty and ugliness.

Those sweetly smiling angels with pensive looks, innocent faces, and cash-boxes for hearts.