Quotes from Honore de Balzac

Men are perfectly willing to abandon a woman but they refuse to be abandoned by her.

Man judges of nature in relation to itself; the angelic spirit judges of it in relation to heaven. In short, to the spirits everything speaks.

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

A man's own vanity is a swindler that never lacks for a dupe.

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.

Virtually all men of action incline to Fatality just as most thinkers incline to Providence.

Plunging to the very depths of sensual pleasure, he gathered more gravel than pearls.

Death unites as well as separates; it silences all paltry feeling.

Women are ever the dupes or the victims of their extreme sensitiveness.

The sanctity of womanhood is incompatible with social liberty and social claims; and for a woman emancipation means corruption.

If certain women walk straight into adultery, there are many others who cling to numerous hopes, and commit sin only after wandering through a maze of sorrows.

The man who enters his wife's dressing room is either a philosopher or a fool.

Women are happy to possess a man whom all women covet.

Women see everything or nothing according to the inclination of their hearts. Love is their sole light.

Physically, a man is a man for a much longer time than a woman is a woman.

Rich women need not fear old age; their gold can always create about them any feelings necessary to their happiness.

Virtue in women is perhaps a question of temperament.

Women? In order to realize how far these charming creatures we idealize can carry their cruelty, we must see them among themselves!

To man, faith; to woman, doubt. She bears the heavier burden. Does not woman invariably suffer for two?

Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enermous there's a real risk it could shatter them.

Most women wish to feel that their spirit has been violated. Do they not, indeed, flatter themselves on never yielding save to force?

Nature endows woman alternately with a particular strength which helps her to suffer and a weakness which counsels her to be resigned.

Women, perhaps even require a little hypocrisy.

Marriageable girls as well as mothers understand the terms and perils of the lottery called wedlock. That is why women weep at a wedding and men smile.