Quotes from balzac honore de xxii

Man himself is not a finished creation; if he were, God would not Be.

Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their temperaments drive them. Add to this the propulsion of self-interest and you may read the enigma of most social matters.

Nature, that good and tender parent, has set round about the mother of a family the most reliable and the most sagacious of spies, the most truthful and at the same time the most discreet in the world. They are silent and yet they speak, they see everything and appear to see nothing.

The married woman is a slave whom one must know how to set upon a throne.

The old man's lips were drawn in puckers, like a curtain, to either corner of his mouth.

There are husbands, tall and of superior intellect, whose wives have lovers who are ugly, short, or stupid.

There are men so situated in life that they can never enter the brilliant sphere in which honest women move, whether for want of a coat, or from their bashfulness, or from the failure of a mahout to introduce them.

To come so low as to beg servants to reveal secrets to you, and to fall lower still by paying for a revelation, is not a crime; it is perhaps not even a dastardly act, but it is certainly a piece of folly; for nothing will ever guarantee to you the honesty of a servant who betrays her mistress, and you can never feel certain whether she is operating in your interest or in that of your wife.

We do not attach ourselves permanently to any possessions, excepting in proportion to the trouble, toil and longing which they have cost us.

What is Art, monsieur, but Nature concentrated?

A husband ought never to be the first to go to sleep and the last to awaken.

A long future requires a long past.

Clouds signify the veil of the Most High.

Everyday life cannot be cast in heroic mould. No doubt there seems, at any rate at first sight, no room left in this scheme of life for that longing after the infinite which expands the mind and soul. But what is there to prevent me from launching on that boundless sea our familiar craft?

The time always comes in which nations and women even the most stupid perceive that their innocence is being abused. The cleverest policy may for a long time proceed in a course of deceit; but it would be very happy for men if they could carry on their deceit to an infinite period; a vast amount of bloodshed would then be avoided, both in nations and in families.