90 Quotes By Honore de Balzac


A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
Honore de Balzac on future

Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God.
Honore de Balzac on god

A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning.
Honore de Balzac on good

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Honore de Balzac on great

There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.
Honore de Balzac on great

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.
Honore de Balzac on great

There is something great and terrible about suicide.
Honore de Balzac on great

A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.
Honore de Balzac on great

Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.
Honore de Balzac on great

It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants.
Honore de Balzac on great

The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.
Honore de Balzac on great

When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.
Honore de Balzac on great

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.
Honore de Balzac on happiness

We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.
Honore de Balzac on happiness

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.
Honore de Balzac on history

All humanity is passion without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
Honore de Balzac on history

For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.
Honore de Balzac on intelligence

Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.
Honore de Balzac on legal

A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.
Honore de Balzac on love

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.
Honore de Balzac on love