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Honore de Balzac

63 quotes

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a French novelist and playwright whose ambitious series of interlinked novels and stories, collectively titled *La Comédie humaine*, paints a sweeping portrait of French society in the decades after the fall of Napoleon. Balzac's keen observation of human nature and social dynamics influenced generations of writers.

“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.”

— Honore de Balzac

Love

All Quotes by Honore de Balzac

“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.”

— Honore de Balzac

Great

“The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom to serve all, but love only one.”

— Honore de Balzac

Love

“Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.”

— Honore de Balzac

Equality

“Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?”

— Honore de Balzac

Society

“Death unites as well as separates it silences all paltry feeling.”

— Honore de Balzac

Death

“What is art? Nature concentrated.”

— Honore de Balzac

Art

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

— Honore de Balzac

Women

“Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.”

— Honore de Balzac

Marriage

“Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!”

— Honore de Balzac

Peace

“It is as absurd to say that a man can't love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.”

— Honore de Balzac

Music

“The art of motherhood involves much silent, unobtrusive self-denial, an hourly devotion which finds no detail too minute.”

— Honore de Balzac

Art

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

— Honore de Balzac

Legal

“Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God.”

— Honore de Balzac

God

“The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.”

— Honore de Balzac

Love

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

— Honore de Balzac

Great

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

— Honore de Balzac

Men

“To those who have exhausted politics, nothing remains but abstract thought.”

— Honore de Balzac

Politics

“Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue.”

— Honore de Balzac

Society

“There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.”

— Honore de Balzac

Great

“Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.”

— Honore de Balzac

Great