Quotes from Honore de Balzac

Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer – Death has never forsaken any man

Man is no match for woman where mischief reigns.

Old men are prone to invest the futures of young men with their own past sorrows.

The greater a man's talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy.

God is the author, men are only the players. These grand pieces which are played upon earth have been composed in heaven.

A man is a poor creature compared to a woman.

It is a singular fact that most men of action incline to the theory of fatalism, while the greater part of men of thought believe in providence.

Men die in despair, while spirits die in ecstasy.

Men who pay their tailors never amount to anything, they never even become Cabinet ministers.

To say to a rich man: You are poor! is to tell the Archbishop of Granada that his sermons are worthless.

The key to all sciences is unquestionably the question mark. To the word How? we owe most of our greatest discoveries. Wisdom in life may perhaps consist in asking ourselves on all occasions: Why?

The most virtuous women have within them something that is never chaste.

What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?

With monuments as with men, position means everything.

Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron.

He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.

The man as he converses is the lover; silent, he is the husband.

Gratitude is a fool's word; we find it in the dictionary, but it is not in the heart of man.

Imaginative, sanguine men will never recognize that in negotiations the most dangerous moment of all is when everything is moving according to their wishes.

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.

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.

Men are so made that they can resist sound argument, and yet yield to a glance.

Can you find a man who loves the occupation that provides him with a livelihood? Professions are like marriages; we end by feeling only their inconveniences.

No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.