"Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!"
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Quote collection
Honore de Balzac quotes (page 17 of 34)
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"A careful observation of Nature will disclose pleasantries of superb irony. She has for instance placed toads close to flowers."
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"Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice."
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"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."
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"Power does not consist in striking with force or with frequency, but in striking true."
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"Love and work have the virtues of making a man pretty indifferent to anything else."
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"Too great a display of delicacy can and does sometimes infringe upon de-cency."
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"During the great storms of our lives we imitate those captains who jettison their weightiest cargo."
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"All human beings go through a previous life... Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand the value of that silence and solitude of spiritual worlds?"
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"A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears."
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"The errors of women spring, almost always, from their faith in the good, or their confidence in the true"
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"With a woman, always make good use of a secret. She will be proportionally grateful to you, like a scoundrel who grants his respect to an honest man he has been unable to swindle."
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"Memories beautify life, but the capacity to forget makes it bearable."
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"A husband and wife who have separate bedrooms have either drifted apart or found happiness."
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"To be happy, a man must love his wife as she chooses to be loved."
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"One hour of love has a whole life in it."
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"Everybody all over the world takes a wife's estimate into account in forming an opinion of a man."
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"Our greatest fears lie in anticipation."
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"People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are."
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"The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others - existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no memory for spiritual things."
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