836 Quotes by Honoré de Balzac

Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.

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.

They ended as all great passions do end – by a misunderstanding.

There are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places in the same scales the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman’s glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire.

Man’s condition is horrible because, no matter what form his happiness may take, it arises from some species of ignorance.

It’s catastrophies which turn wise and strong people into philosophers.

A woman’s greatest charm consists in a constant appeal to a man’s generosity by a gracious declaration of helplessness which fills him with pride and awakens the most magnificent feelings in his heart.

Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn’t even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.

How can we explain the perpetuity of envy – a vice which yields no return?