Honore De Balzac

The events of human life, whether public or private, are so intimately linked to architecture that most observers can reconstruct nations or individuals in all the truth of their habits from the remains of their monuments or from their domestic relics.

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment.

Virtue, perhaps, is nothing more than politeness of soul.

If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye.

A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.

Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true.

Passion is born deaf and dumb.

With monuments as with men, position means everything.

They ended as all great passions do end - by a misunderstanding.

Sometimes at the best moments a single word or a look is enough.'

We are never either so wretched or so happy as we say we are.

I believe in the incomprehensibility of God.

There are no principles; there are only events. There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances.

The man who enters his wife's dressing room is either a philosopher or a fool.

The woman who is about to deceive her husband always carefully thinks out how she is going to act, but she is never logical.

Squeeze marriage as much as you like, you will never extract anything from it but fun for bachelors and boredom for husbands.

When there is an old maid in the house, a watchdog is unnecessary.

All human power is a compound of time and patience.

When one has no particular talent for anything, one takes to the pen.

Novelty is both delightful and deceptive.

Men are such dupes by choice, that he who would impose upon others never need be at a loss to find ready victims.