Quotes from Honore de Balzac

A great writer is nothing less than a martyr who does not die.

Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn't even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.

I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.

Every moment of happiness requires a great amount of Ignorance

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

All happiness depends on courage and work.

The world will avenge itself upon all happiness in which it has no share.

Our happiness often depends upon social hypocrisies to which we will never stoop.

People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.

The duration of a couple's passion is in proportion to the woman's original resistance or to the obstacles that social hazards have placed in the way of her happiness.

And he, like many jaded people, had few pleasures left in life save good food and drink.

But does not happiness come from the soul within?

Misfortune, no less than happiness, inspires us to dream.

Vivacity is the health of the spirit.

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

The privilege of feeling at home everywhere belongs only to kings, wolves and robbers.

Hope is a memory that desires, the memory is a memory that has enjoyed.

It is not hope but despair that gives us the measure of our ambitions. We may yield secretly to beautiful poems of hope but grief looms start and stripped of all veils.

Hope is a light diet but very stimulating.

The impossible is justified by the fact that it occurred

In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.

Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.