A murderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every moment of his life.

— Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de Balzac Quotes

Love is the poetry of the senses.

— Honoré de Balzac

Love Valentine's Day Cute Love Short Love for Her Love for Wife

People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.

— Honoré de Balzac

The good we do to others is spoilt unless we efface ourselves so completely that those we help have no sense of inferiority.

— Honoré de Balzac

The questioning spirit is the rebellious spirit. A rebellion is always either a cloak to hide a prince, or the swaddling wrapper of a new rule.

— Honoré de Balzac

Nature knows nothing but solid bodies; your science deals only with combinations of surfaces. And so nature constantly gives the lie to all your laws; can you name one to which no fact makes an exception?

— Honoré de Balzac

Few men are raised in our estimation by being too closely examined.

— Honoré de Balzac

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.

— Honoré de Balzac

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.

— Honoré de Balzac

Society is no more indulgent than was the God of Genesis.

— Honoré de Balzac

Woman is a most charming creature, who changes her heart as easily as she does her gloves.

— Honoré de Balzac

Virtually all men of action incline to Fatality just as most thinkers incline to Providence.

— Honoré de Balzac

The key to all sciences is unquestionably the question mark. To the word How? we owe most of our greatest discoveries. Wisdom in life may perhaps consist in asking ourselves on all occasions: Why?

— Honoré de Balzac

Man’s condition is horrible because, no matter what form his happiness may take, it arises from some species of ignorance.

— Honoré de Balzac

Self-interest is an ineffable feeling which shall follow us into God’s very presence since they say there is a hierarchy even among the Holy Saints.

— Honoré de Balzac

The great secret of social alchemy is to profit best from each stage in our lives, to gather all its leaves in spring, all its flowers in summer, and all its fruits in autumn.

— Honoré de Balzac

Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong, so the one we hate can do no right.

— Honoré de Balzac

Our energies are often stimulated by the necessity of supporting a being weaker than ourselves.

— Honoré de Balzac

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!

— Honoré de Balzac

To get a traveling salesman drunk is the height of impossibility.

— Honoré de Balzac

Self-love is as protective as the Deity; Disenchantment is as perspicacious as a surgeon; Experience is as provident as a mother. Such are the theologic virtues of marriage.

— Honoré de Balzac

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