Quotes from Honore de Balzac

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

A jealous husband doesnt doubt his wife, but himself.

Noble hearts are neither jealous nor afraid because jealousy spells doubt and fear spells pettiness.

Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole.

Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.

Jealousy, an eminently credulous and suspicious passion, allows fancy the greatest possible play. But it does not bestow wit, it banishes all sense.

Kindness steers no easy course. Attributing it to character, we seldom recognize the secret efforts of a noble heart, whereas we reward really wicked people for the evil they refrain from committing.

Unintelligent persons are like weeds that thrive in good ground; they love to be amused in proportion to the degree in which they weary themselves.

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

I can no longer think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me.

When chaste people need body or mind to resort to action or thought, they find steel in their muscles or knowledge in their intelligence. Theirs the diabolic vigor or the black magic of will power.

The fame of surgeons resembles the fame of actors, who live only during their lifetime and whose talent is no longer appreciable once they have disappeared.

There are some women whose pregnancy would make some sly bachelor smile.

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

God is the poet; men are but the actors. The great dramas of earth were written in heaven.

Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.

No society is complete without some victim, a creature to pity, to jeer at, to scorn or to protect.

Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.

Marriage is an institution necessary to the maintenance of society but contrary to the laws of nature.

The Police and the Society of Jesus posses in common the virtue of never forsaking their enemies as friends.

Do you know what is the hardest thing in life? To make a choice.

Poverty is a divine stepmother who does for youths what their own mothers were unable to do. It introduces them to frugality, to the world and to life.

In intimate family life, there comes a moment when children, willingly or no, become the judges of their parents.

The habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the physical presence.