"There are two kinds of poets: those who feel and those who express themselves. The former are happier."
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Quote collection
Honore de Balzac quotes (page 30 of 34)
668 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"When one of those skirt-bearing animals has set herself up above all by permitting herself to be deified, no power on earth can be as proud as she."
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"A woman, even a prude, is not long at a loss, however dire her plight. She would seen always to have in hand the fig leaf our Mother Eve bequeathed to her."
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"Modern reformers offer nebulous theories or write philanthropic novels. But your thief acts! He is as clear as a fact and as logical as a punch on the nose! And what a style he has!"
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"When she lives at his palace, the maiden niece of a bishop can pass for a respectable woman because, if she has a love affair, she is obliged to hoodwink her uncle."
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"No woman has ever existed who did not know perfectly well in her heart what to expect from the superiority or inferiority of a rival."
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"A woman in love has full intelligence of her power; the more virtuous she is, the more effective her coquetry."
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"Many of us marvel at the icy insensitivity with which women snuff out their armours. But if they did not blot out the past in this manner, life for them would lose all dignity and they could never resist the fatal familiarities to which they once submitted."
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"Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters."
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"Beaucoup d'hommes ont un orgueil qui les pousse a' cacher leurs combats et a' ne se montrer que victorieux. Many men have pride that causes them to hide their combats and to only show themselves victorious."
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"Marriage is an institution necessary to the maintenance of society but contrary to the laws of nature."
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"When passion is not fed, it changes to need. At this juncture, marriage becomes a fixed idea in the mind of the bourgeois, being the only means whereby he can win a woman and appropriate her to his uses."
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"What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk."
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"Does not any limit imposed upon one inspire a desire to go beyond it? Does not our keenest suffering arise when our free will is crossed?"
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"La femme marie e est un esclave qu'il faut savoir mettre sur un tro" n e. A married woman is a slave whom one must put on a throne."
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"Le coeur d'une me' re est un ab|"me au fond duquel se trouve toujours un pardon. A mother'sheart isanabyss atthebottomof whichthere is always forgiveness."
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"A lui la foi, a' elle le doute, a' elle le fardeau le plus lourd: la femme ne souffre-t-elle pas toujours pour deux? For him, faith; for her, doubt and for her theheavier load: does not the woman always suffer for both?"
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"Society is no more indulgent than was the God of Genesis."
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"Un homme n'a jamais pu e lever sa ma|"tresse jusqu'a' lui; mais une femme place toujours son amant aussi haut qu'elle. A man can never elevate his mistress to his rank, but a woman can always place her lover as high as she."
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"To get a traveling salesman drunk is the height of impossibility."
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