A biography for Honore de Balzachasn’t been written yet.
“Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.”
“There are some women whose pregnancy would make some sly bachelor smile.”
“Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.”
“Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.”
“The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.”
“Those who spend too fast never grow rich.”
“For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.”
“Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.”
“Chance, my dear, is the sovereign deity in child-bearing.”
“Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.”
“Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.”
“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
“The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.”
“The duration of passion is proportionate with the original resistance of the woman.”
“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.”
“Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.”
“Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.”
“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.”
“Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.”
“Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.”