Quotes By Author: Honoré de Balzac

“Glory is the sunshine of the dead”

“Love is the poetry of the senses!”

“Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but death is truer – Death has never forsaken any man”

“The more he saw, the more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-men. ‘What a cold-blooded jest!’ said he to himself. ‘It was not devised by a God.’ From that time forth he renounced a better world, and never uncovered himself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the carven saints in the churches became works of art”

“And he, like many jaded people, had few pleasures left in life save good food and drink.”

“for a woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea”

“All happiness depends on courage and work.”

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”

“There is no such thing as a great talent without great willpower.”