"There is nothing original; all is reflected light."
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Quote collection
Honore de Balzac quotes (page 26 of 34)
668 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Is there any instinct more deeply implanted in the heart of man than the pride of protection, a protection which is constantly exerted for a fragile and defenceless creature?"
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"It is easier for a woman to be a good wife than a good mother. A widow has two duties with contrary obligations: she is a mother and she must exercise paternal authority. Few woman are strong enough to understand and to play this role."
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"When in Turkey, do as the turkeys do."
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"The innocence of virgins is like milk which turns when exposed to a clap of thunder, to a tart smell, to a hot day, to the merest nothing."
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"Love is like some fresh spring, first a stream and then a river, changing its aspect and its nature as it flows to plunge itself in some boundless ocean, where restricted natures only find monotony, but where great souls are engulfed in endless contemplation."
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"If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible."
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"An ugly woman, married to King Henry VIII, would have defied the axe and daunted her husband's infidelities."
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"To man, faith; to woman, doubt. She bears the heavier burden. Does not woman invariably suffer for two?"
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"What saves the virtue of many a woman is that protecting god, the impossible."
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"Journalists grow accustomed to seeing evil and they let it pass; they proceed to approve it, and they end by committing it themselves."
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"One exits with one's husband -- one lives with one's lover."
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"I should like one of these days to be so well known, so popular, so celebrated, so famous, that it would permit me . . . to break wind in society, and society would think it a most natural thing."
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"One admirable trait in women is their lack of illusions about themselves. They never reason about their most blameworthy actions; their feelings carry them away. Even their dissimulation comes naturally to them, and in them crime is free of all baseness. Most of the time they simply do not know how it happened."
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"This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice."
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"People who climb from one rung of society to another can never do anything simply."
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"Lofty souls are always inclined to make a virtue of misfortune."
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"Grief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere."
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"I declare, on my soul and conscience, that the attainment of power, or of a great name in literature, seemed to me an easier victory than a success with some young, witty, and gracious lady of high degree."
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"Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty."
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