836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Love is the only passion which suffers neither past nor future.

One hour of love has a whole life in it.

Prostitution and robbery are two living protests, respectively female and male, made by the natural state against the social state.

No hawk swooping down upon his prey, no stag improvising new detours by which to trick the huntsman, no dog scenting game from afar is comparable in speed to the celerity of a salesman when he gets wind a deal, to his skill in tripping up or forestalling a rival, and to the art with which he sniffs out and discovers a possible sale.

Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.

A woman questions the man who loves exactly as a judge questions a criminal. This being so, a flash of the eye, a mere word, an inflection of the voice or a moment's hesitation suffice to expose the fact, betrayal or crime he is attempting to conceal.

A woman in love has full intelligence of her power; the more virtuous she is, the more effective her coquetry.

When one of those skirt-bearing animals has set herself up above all by permitting herself to be deified, no power on earth can be as proud as she.

When attempted self-destruction does not cure a man of life, it cures him of voluntary death.