"Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong, so the one we hate can do no right."
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Quote collection
Honore de Balzac quotes (page 14 of 34)
668 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Vulgar souls look hastily and superficially at the sea and accuse it of monotony; other more privileged beings could spend a lifetime admiring it and discovering new and changing phenomena that delight them. So it is with love."
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"A woman's greatest charm consists in a constant appeal to a man's generosity by a gracious declaration of helplessness which fills him with pride and awakens the most magnificent feelings in his heart."
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"For a sick man the world begins at his pillow and ends at the foot of his bed."
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"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."
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"Passion is born deaf and dumb."
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"Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity; in woman, fantasy."
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"Rare is the man who suffers no remorse as he passes from the state of confidant to that of rival."
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"A woman filled with faith in the one she loves is the creation of a novelist's imagination."
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"Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society."
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"Nothing is irredeemably ugly but sin."
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"The country is provincial; it becomes ridiculous when it tries to ape Paris."
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"What is art? Nature concentrated."
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"The greatest joy a petty soul can taste is to dupe a great soul and catch it in a snare."
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"Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority over the other."
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"Old maids claw as cats do. They not only inflict wounds but experience pleasure in doing so. Nor will they fail to remind their victims of the blood drawn."
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"The great secret of social alchemy is to profit best from each stage in our lives, to gather all its leaves in spring, all its flowers in summer, and all its fruits in autumn."
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"It is no sin to be tempted; the wickedness lies in being overcome."
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"Men are such dupes by choice, that he who would impose upon others never need be at a loss to find ready victims."
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"For avarice begins where poverty ends."
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