836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Virtue will cut your head off, vice will only cut your hair.

Doing his utmost, deploying all his energy, a young man setting out from zero can wind up after ten years somewhere below where he started.

Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.

The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.

Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in getting them clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of our epoch.

Happy?" asked Aquilina, with dreadful look, and a smile full of pity and terror. "Ah, you do not know what it is to be condemned to a life of pleasure.

Man cannot spend all his time doing evil, and even in the company of pirates there must be some sweet moments on their sinister ship when you feel as if you were aboard a pleasure yacht.

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.

Madame de Nucingen was already there, dressed with the deliberate aim of appealing to all eyes, knowing that thereby she would seem even more attractive to Eugène.