836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin.

No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.

There is neither vice nor virtue, there are only circumstances.

No woman dares to refuse love without a motive, for nothing is more natural than to yield to love.

When an intelligent man reaches the point of inviting self-explanation and offers surrendering the key to his heart, he is assuredly riding a drunken horse.

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.

At fifteen, neither beauty nor talent exist: a woman is all promise.

Let nothing dupe you! Such is the horrible maxim that acts as a solvent upon every noble feeling man experiences.