One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.
Honore De BalzacRead
Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote contrasts the needs of small-minded people with those of great souls, suggesting that the former require control while the latter seek equality.
Honore De Balzac's quote highlights the dichotomy between individuals with limited perspectives and those with expansive aspirations. While smaller natures may depend on authoritarian structures to find strength and direction, those with greater ambitions and deep understanding yearn for equality and collaboration, allowing their true potential to flourish and contribute meaningfully to society.
Themes
EqualityDespotismNatureSoulFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about governance and society, one might use this quote to illustrate the need for democratic values.
More from Honore De Balzac
All quotes βLoyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.
Honore De BalzacRead
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
Honore De BalzacRead
Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?
Honore De BalzacRead
However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?
Honore De BalzacRead
Love is a religion, and its rituals cost more than those of other religions. It goes by quickly and, like a street urchin, it likes to mark its passage by a trail of devastation.
Honore De BalzacRead
Similar quotes
She asked where he lived. Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.
James M. BarrieRead
Our social and economic system cannot march toward better days unless it is inspired by things of the Spirit. It is here that the higher purposes of individualism must find their sustenance.
Herbert HooverRead
I found earthquakes, even when I was in them, deeply satisfying, abruptly revealed evidence of the scheme in action. That the schemes could destroy the works of man might be a personal regret but remained, in the larger picture I had come to recognize, a matter of abiding indifference. No eye was on the sparrow. No eye was watching me.
Joan DidionRead
Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock." - Frankenstein p115
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyRead
How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.
Christopher HitchensRead
Try to discover who I am from my choice of words and colors, as attentive people like yourselves might examine footprints to catch a thief.
Orhan PamukRead