Honore de Balzac

“Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a sign of constancy or of love.”

“Nothing is a greater impediment to being on good terms with others than being ill at ease with yourself.”

“To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.”

“Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady's window.”

“A husband who submits to his wife's yoke is justly held an object of ridicule. A woman's influence ought to be entirely concealed.”

“But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.”

“Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.”

“Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God.”

“Unintelligent persons are like weeds that thrive in good ground; they love to be amused in proportion to the degree in which they weary themselves.”

“The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.”

“Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.”

“The more one judges, the less one loves.”

“To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.”

“The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.”

“When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.”

“Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.”

“It would be curious to know what leads a man to become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father's craft.”

“It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.”

“At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist; there can only be promise of the coming woman.”

“It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.”