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Do You Know How A Man Makes His Way Here? By Brilliant Genius Or By Skilful Corruption. You Must Either Cut Your Way Through These Masses Of Men Like A Cannon Ball, Or Steal Among Them Like A Plague.

-Honore De Balzac

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Do You Know How

Honore De Balzac

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Do You Know How A Man Makes His Way Here? By Brilliant Genius Or By Skilful Corruption. You Must Either Cut Your Way Through These Masses Of Men Like A Cannon Ball, Or Steal Among Them Like A Plague.

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In Family Life People Almost Always Adjust Themselves To Misfortune. They Make A Bed Of It And Hope Makes Them Accept That Bed, However Hard It Is.

Nothing Is Unimportant To A Man Plunged In Despair. He Is As Credulous As A Criminal Sentenced To Death Who Listens To A Lunatic Raving To Him About How He Can Escape Through The Keyhole.

Envy Is The Most Stupid Of Vices, For There Is No Single Advantage To Be Gained From It.

Like Hunger, Physical Love Is A Necessity. But Man's Appetite For Amour Is Never So Regular Or So Sustained As His Appetite For The Delights Of The Table.

Passion Is Universal Humanity. Without It Religion, History, Romance And Art Would Be Useless.

Nature Makes Only Dumb Animals. We Owe The Fools To Society.

And He, Like Many Jaded People, Had Few Pleasures Left In Life Save Good Food And Drink.

All We Are Is In The Soul.

Marriage Is A Fight To The Death, Before Which The Wedded Couple Ask A Blessing From Heaven, Because It Is The Rashest Of All Undertakings To Swear Eternal Love; The Fight At Once Commences And Victory, That Is To Say Liberty, Remains In The Hands Of The Cleverer Of The Two.

The Boor Covers Himself, The Rich Man Or The Fool Adorns Himself, And The Elegant Man Gets Dressed.

Your Women Of Fashion Ceases To Be A Woman. She Is Neither Mother, Nor Wife, Nor Lover. She Is, Medically Speaking, Sex On The Brain.

This Surface Good-nature Which Captivates A New Acquaintance And Is No Bar To Treachery, Which Knows No Scruple And Is Never At Fault For An Excuse, Which Makes An Outcry At The Wound Which It Condones, Is One Of The Most Distinctive Features Of The Journalist. This Camaraderie (the Word Is A Stroke Of Genius) Corrodes The Noblest Minds; It Eats Into Their Pride Like Rust, Kills The Germ Of Great Deeds, And Lends A Sanction To Moral Cowardice.

To Say To A Rich Man: You Are Poor! Is To Tell The Archbishop Of Granada That His Sermons Are Worthless.

Perhaps It Is Only Human Nature To Inflict Suffering On Anything That Will Endure Suffering, Whether By Reason Of Its Genuine Humility, Or Indifference, Or Sheer Helplessness.

When A Woman Wants To Betray Her Husband, Her Actions Are Almost Invariably Studied But They Are Never Reasoned.

The Victory Always Has A Lot Of Parents But The Defeat Is Always An Orphan.

Man Judges Of Nature In Relation To Itself; The Angelic Spirit Judges Of It In Relation To Heaven. In Short, To The Spirits Everything Speaks.

Authentic Love Always Assumes The Mystery Of Modesty, Even In Its Expression, Because Actions Speak Louder Than Words. Unlike A Feigned Love, It Feels No Need To Set A Conflagration.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

Reading Brings Us Unknown Friends

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.

A Grocer Is Attracted To His Business By A Magnetic Force As Great As The Repulsion Which Renders It Odious To Artists.

Girls Are Apt To Imagine Noble And Enchanting And Totally Imaginary Figures In Their Own Minds; They Have Fanciful Extravagant Ideas About Men, And Sentiment, And Life; And Then They Innocently Endow Somebody Or Other With All The Perfections For Their Daydreams, And Put Their Trust In Him.

I Can No Longer Think Of Anything But You. In Spite Of Myself, My Imagination Carries Me To You. I Grasp You, I Kiss You, I Caress You, A Thousand Of The Most Amorous Caresses Take Possession Of Me.

Thinking Of You

Equality May Be The Law, But No Human Power Can Install It.

No Man Should Marry Until He Has Studied Anatomy And Dissected At Least One Woman.

When Women Love, They Forgive Everything...

Love Is The Only Passion Which Suffers Neither Past Nor Future.

What Saves The Virtue Of Many A Woman Is That Protecting God, The Impossible.

If The Artist Does Not Fling Himself, Without Reflecting, Into His Work, As Curtis Flung Himself Into The Yawning Gulf, As The Soldier Flings Himself Into The Enemy's Trenches, And If, Once In This Crater, He Does Not Work Like A Miner On Whom The Walls Of His Gallery Have Fallen In; If He Contemplates Difficulties Instead Of Overcoming Them One By One ... He Is Simply Looking On At The Suicide Of His Own Talent.

On The Moral Plane, True Friends Enjoy The Same Protection As The Sense Of Smell Confers Upon Dogs. They Scent The Sorrow Of Their Friends, They Divine Its Causes, And They Clasp It To Their Minds And Hearts.

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.

Are Not Our Noblest Feelings As It Were The Poems Of Our Will.

For Passion, Be It Observed, Brings Insight With It; It Can Give A Sort Of Intelligence To Simpletons, Fools, And Idiots, Especially During Youth.

Six Weeks With A Fever Is An Eternity.

Women Are Always True, Even In The Midst Of Their Greatest Falsities, Because They Are Always Influenced By Some Natural Feeling.

Suicide, Moreover, Was At The Time In Vogue In Paris: What More Suitable Key To The Mystery Of Life For A Skeptical Society?

Misfortune, No Less Than Happiness, Inspires Us To Dream.

Suffering Predisposes The Mind To Devoutness; And Most Young Girls, Prompted By Instinctive Tenderness, Lean Towards Mysticism, The Obscurer Side Of Religion.

Conventions Are Often More Cruel Than The Law.

To Live In The Presence Of Great Truths And Eternal Laws, To Be Led By Permanent Ideals - That Is What Keeps A Man Patient When The World Ignores Him, And Calm And Unspoiled When The World Praises Him.

Who Is To Decide Which Is The Grimmer Sight: Withered Hearts, Or Empty Skulls?

The Duration Of A Couple's Passion Is In Proportion To The Woman's Original Resistance Or To The Obstacles That Social Hazards Have Placed In The Way Of Her Happiness.

Conscience Is Our Unerring Judge Until We Finally Stifle It.

Everything Is Bilateral In The Domain Of Thought. Ideas Are Binary. Janus Is The Myth Of Criticism And The Symbol Of Genius. Only God Is Triangular!

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.

It Would Be Curious To Know What Leads A Man To Become A Stationer Rather Than A Baker, When He Is No Longer Compelled, As Among The Egyptians, To Succeed To His Father's Craft.

We Have Long Struggles With Ourself, Of Which The Outcome Is One Of Our Actions; They Are, As It Were, The Inner Side Of Human Nature. This Inner Side Is God's; The Outer Side Belongs To Men.

Every Moment Of Happiness Requires A Great Amount Of Ignorance

Moments Of Happiness

What Is A Child, Monsieur, But The Image Of Two Beings, The Fruit Of Two Sentiments Spontaneously Blended?

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!

At Thirty Years A Woman Asks Her Lover To Give Her Back The Esteem She Has Forfeited For His Sake; She Lives Only For Him, Her Thoughts Are Full Of His Future, He Must Have A Great Career, She Bids Him Make It Glorious; She Can Obey, Entreat, Command, Humble Herself, Or Rise In Pride; Times Without Number She Brings Comfort When A Young Girl Can Only Make Moan.

How Sternly We Reproach Virtue For Its Failings, How Indulgent We Are To The Better Qualities Of Vice!

Love Has Its Own Instinct, Finding The Way To The Heart, As The Feeblest Insect Finds The Way To Its Flower, With A Will Which Nothing Can Dismay Nor Turn Aside.

Doubt Follows White-winged Hope With Trembling Steps.

True Love Is Mixed Up With Birdlike Squabbles, In Which The Disputants Wound Each Other To The Quick; But A Quarrel Without Animus Is, On The Contrary, Apiece Of Flattery To The Dupe's Conceit.

Love Based Upon Money And Vanity Forms The Most Stubborn Of Passions.

Those Who Spend Too Fast Never Grow Rich.

Love Knows Nothing Of Modesty.

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?

An Ounce Of Courage Will Go Farther With Women Than A Pound Of Timidity.

Rich Women Need Not Fear Old Age; Their Gold Can Always Create About Them Any Feelings Necessary To Their Happiness.

How Can We Explain The Perpetuity Of Envy--a Vice Which Yields No Return?

The Man Who Enters His Wife's Dressing Room Is Either A Philosopher Or A Fool.

Rich Men Are Resolved To Be Astonished At Nothing. When They See A Masterpiece, They Must Needs At One Glance Recognize Some Flaw To Dispense Them From Admiration, A Vulgar Emotion.

Men Are So Made That They Can Resist Sound Argument, And Yet Yield To A Glance.

Women Are Happy To Possess A Man Whom All Women Covet.

I Am A Galley Slave To Pen And Ink.

Today Nobility Is Gone: There Is Only A Peerage.

Once She Has Committed Sin, There Is Nothing Left For The Protestant Woman, Whereas The Catholic Church, Hope Of Forgiveness Makes A Woman Sublime.

As Soon As Man Seeks To Penetrate The Secrets Of Nature--in Which Nothing Is Secret And It Is But A Question Of Seeing--he Realizes That The Simple Produces The Supernatural.

Reproach Is Usually Honest, Which Is More Than Can Be Said Of Praise.

Manners Are The Hypocrisy Of A Nation.

An Unfulfilled Vocation Drains The Color From A Man's Entire Existence.

Power Is Not Revealed By Striking Hard Or Often, But By Striking True.

Women, Perhaps Even Require A Little Hypocrisy.

We Do Not Attach Ourselves Lastingly To Anything That Has Not Cost Us Care, Labor Or Longing.

Economized Love Is Never Real Love.

Beauty Is The Greatest Of Human Powers. Any Power Without Counterbalance Or Control Becomes Autocratic And Leads To Abuse And To Folly. Despotism In A Government Is Insanity; In Woman, Fantasy.

Law Is A Silvery Web That Lets The Big Flies Pass And Catches All The Small Ones.

Nothing Is So Discreet As A Young Face, For Nothing Is Less Mobile; It Has The Serenity, The Surface Smoothness, And The Freshnessof A Lake. There Is No Character In Women's Faces Before The Age Of Thirty.

A Young Bride Is Like A Plucked Flower; But A Guilty Wife Is Like A Flower That Had Been Walked Over.

The Man Whom Fate Employs To Awaken Love In The Heart Of A Young Girl Is Often Unaware Of His Work And Therefore Leaves It Uncompleted.

Passion Is Born Deaf And Dumb.

People Who Climb From One Rung Of Society To Another Can Never Do Anything Simply.

You're A Fine Fastidious Young Man, As Proud As A Lion, As Gentle As A Girl. You'd Make A Good Catch For The Devil.

Where Some One Else's Welfare Is Concerned, A Young Girl Becomes As Ingenious As A Thief. Guileless Where She Herself Is In Question, And Full Of Foresight For Me,-she Is Like A Heavenly Angel Forgiving The Strange Incomprehensible Sins Of Earth.

True Love Rules Especially Through Memory.

Vice Is Perhaps A Desire To Learn Everything.

Desire To Learn

A Flow Of Words Is A Sure Sign Of Duplicity.

Most Women Wish To Feel That Their Spirit Has Been Violated. Do They Not, Indeed, Flatter Themselves On Never Yielding Save To Force?

The Country Is Provincial; It Becomes Ridiculous When It Tries To Ape Paris.

Love And Work Have The Virtues Of Making A Man Pretty Indifferent To Anything Else.

Paris, Like Every Pretty Woman, Is Subject To Inexplicable Whims Of Beauty And Ugliness.

We Are Never Either So Wretched Or So Happy As We Say We Are.

I Should Like One Of These Days To Be So Well Known, So Popular, So Celebrated, So Famous, That It Would Permit Me . . . To Break Wind In Society, And Society Would Think It A Most Natural Thing.

Art's Greatest Efforts Are Invariably A Timid Counterfeit Of Nature.

Creole Women Take After Europe In Their Intelligence, After The Tropics In The Illogical Violence Of Their Passions, And After The Indies In The Apathetic Indolence With Which They Commit Or Suffer Good And Evil.

To Lese-majeste And Contempt Of Court, We Must Add The Crime Of Lese-million, That Fearful Indignity We Visit On The Rich When We Expose The Impotence Of Gold.

Rare Is The Man Who Suffers No Remorse As He Passes From The State Of Confidant To That Of Rival.

Clothes Are Like A Gloss That Sets Off Everything; Dresser Were Invented More To Enhance Physical Advantages Than To Veil Physical Defects.

Believe Everything You Hear Said Of The World; Nothing Is Too Impossibly Bad.

Love May Be Or It May Not, But Where It Is, It Ought To Reveal Itself In Its Immensity.

For Certain People, Misfortune Is A Beacon That Lights Up The Dark And Baser Sides Of Social Life.

What Makes Friendship Indissolute And What Doubles Its Charms Is A Feeling We Find Lacking In Love: I Mean Certitude.

Stupidity Assumes Two Forms, It Speaks Or Is Silent. Mute Stupidity Is Bearable.

There Are No Little Events With The Heart. It Magnifies Everything; It Places In The Same Scales The Fall Of An Empire Of Fourteen Years And The Dropping Of A Woman's Glove, And Almost Always The Glove Weighs More Than The Empire.

Grief Ennobles The Commonest People Because It Has Its Own Essential Grandeur. To Shine With The Luster Of Grief, A Person Need Only Be Sincere.

Remorse Is Impotent; It Will Repeat Its Faults. Repentance Only Is A True Force; It Puts An End To Everything.

Women? In Order To Realize How Far These Charming Creatures We Idealize Can Carry Their Cruelty, We Must See Them Among Themselves!

How Did You Get Back?' Asked Vautrin. 'i Walked,' Replied Eugene. 'i Wouldn't Like Half-pleasures, Myself,' Observed The Tempter. 'i'd Want To Go There In My Own Carriage, Have My Own Box, And Come Back In Comfort. All Or Nothing, That's My Motto.' 'and A Very Good One,' Said Madame Vauquer.

Handsome Widows, After A Twelve-month, Enjoy A Latitude And Longitude Without Limit.

Sensuality Is The Death Of The Soul.

Death Is As Unexpected In His Caprice As A Courtesan In Her Disdain; But Death Is Truer – Death Has Never Forsaken Any Man

A Lover Always Thinks Of His Mistress First And Himself Second; With A Husband It Runs The Other Way.

The Virtues We Acquire, Which Develop Slowly Within Us, Are The Invisible Links That Bind Each One Of Our Existences To The Others - Existences Which The Spirit Alone Remembers, For Matter Has No Memory For Spiritual Things.

The Causes That Govern The Heart Appear To Be Wholly Alien To The Results Achieved. Are The Forces That Moved A Desperate Criminal The Same That Fill A Martyr With Pride, As Both Mount The Scaffold?

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.

Towns Find It As Hard As Houses Of Business To Rise Again From Ruin.

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.

In All Lands, Sailors Form A Race Apart. They Profess A Congenital Contempt For Landlubbers. As For The Tradesman, He Understands Nothing Of Sailors Nor Cares A Fig About Them. He Is Content To Rob Them If He Can.

Though The Human Heart May Have To Pause For Rest When Climbing The Heights Of Affection It Rarely Stops On The Slippery Slope Of Hatred.

Everybody All Over The World Takes A Wife's Estimate Into Account In Forming An Opinion Of A Man.

A Grass Blade Believes That Men Build Palaces For It To Grow In. Grass Wedges Its Way Between The Closest Blocks Of Marble And It Brings Them Down. This Power Of Feeble Life Which Can Creep In Anywhere Is Greater Than That Of The Mighty Behind Their Cannons.

In A Husband, There Is Only A Man; In A Married Woman, There Is A Man, A Father, A Mother And A Woman.

Glory Is A Poison, Good To Be Taken In Small Doses.

Necessity Is Often The Spur To Genius.

The Response Man Has The Greatest Difficulty In Tolerating Is Pity, Especially When He Warrants It. Hatred Is A Tonic, It Makes One Live, It Inspires Vengeance, But Pity Kills, It Makes Our Weakness Weaker.

When There Is An Old Maid In The House, A Watchdog Is Unnecessary.

Generally Our Confidences Move Downward Rather Than Upward; In Our Secret Affairs, We Employ Our Inferiors Much More Than Our Bettors.

Yes, I Can Understand That A Man Might Go To A Gambling Table When He Sees That All That Lies Between Him And Death Is His Last Crown.

Envy Lurks At The Bottom Of The Human Heart Like A Viper In Its Hole.

A Girl Fresh From A Boarding School May Perhaps Be A Virgin But No! She Is Never Chaste.

Innocence Alone Dares Commit Certain Acts Of Audacity. Virtue, When Tutored, Is As Calculating As Vice.

To Have Fame Follow Us Is Well, But It Is Not A Desirable Avant-courier.

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.

When An Intelligent Man Reaches The Point Of Inviting Self-explanation And Offers Surrendering The Key To His Heart, He Is Assuredly Riding A Drunken Horse.

Is There Any Instinct More Deeply Implanted In The Heart Of Man Than The Pride Of Protection, A Protection Which Is Constantly Exerted For A Fragile And Defenceless Creature?

Everything Becomes Agitated. Ideas Quick-march Into Motion Like Battalions Of A Grand Army To Its Legendary Fighting Ground, And The Battle Rages. Memories Charge In, Bright Flags On High; The Cavalry Of Metaphor Deploys With A Magnificent Gallop; The Artillery Of Logic Rushes Up With Clattering Wagons And Cartridges; On Imagination's Orders, Sharpshooters Sight And Fire; Forms And Shapes And Characters Rear Up; The Paper Is Spread With Ink - For The Nightly Labor Begins And Ends With Torrents Of This Black Water, As A Battle Opens And Concludes With Black Powder.

One Day, About The Middle Of July 1838, One Of The Carriages, Lately Introduced To Paris Cabstands, And Known As Milords, Was Driving Down The Rue De L'universite, Conveying A Stout Man Of Middle Height In The Uniform Of A Captain Of The National Guard.

Despotism Accomplishes Great Things Illegally; Liberty Doesn't Even Go To The Trouble Of Accomplishing Small Things Legally.

Thanks To The Toleration Preached By The Encyclopedists Of The Eighteenth Century, The Sorcerer Is Exempt From Torture.

Unintelligent Persons Are Like Weeds That Thrive In Good Ground; They Love To Be Amused In Proportion To The Degree In Which They Weary Themselves.

God Is The Author, Men Are Only The Players. These Grand Pieces Which Are Played Upon Earth Have Been Composed In Heaven.

Constancy Will Always Be The Genius Of Love, The Indication Of That Strength Which Constitutes The Poet. A Man Should Possess All Women In His Wife, Like Those Squalid Poetasters Of The Seventeenth Century Who Made Fair Irises And Dazzling Chloes Of Their Lowly Manons.

Inspiration Is The Opportunity Of Genius.

Our Happiness Often Depends Upon Social Hypocrisies To Which We Will Never Stoop.

Talent Is A Flame, But Genius Is A Fire.

A Woman Must Be A Genius To Create A Good Husband.

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?

All Men Can Bear A Familiar, Definite Misfortune Better Than The Cruel Alternations Of A Fate Which, From One Moment To Another, Brings Excessive Joy Or Sorrow.

The More Illegal A Profit, The More Tenaciously A Man Clings To It.

Life In Clubs Is No Paltry Sign Of The Times We Live In. Here Gentlemen Gamble With Others Whom They Would Not Dream Of Inviting To Their Homes.

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.

Passions Are No More Forgiving Than Human Laws And They Reason More Justly. Are They Not Based On A Conscience Of Their Own, Infallible As An Instinct?

Incurable Wounds Are Those Inflicted By Tongue And Eye, By Mockery And Disdain.

But Does Not Happiness Come From The Soul Within?

God Is The Poet; Men Are But The Actors. The Great Dramas Of Earth Were Written In Heaven.

They [twin Beds] Are The Most Stupid, The Most Perfidious, And The Most Dangerous Invention In The World. Shame And A Curse On Who Thought Of Them.

The Sanctity Of Womanhood Is Incompatible With Social Liberty And Social Claims; And For A Woman Emancipation Means Corruption.

Virtue In Women Is Perhaps A Question Of Temperament.

Modesty Is The Conscience Of The Body.

I Do Not Regard A Broker As A Member Of The Human Race.

Events Are Never Absolute, Their Outcome Depends Entirely Upon The Individual. Misfortune Is A Stepping Stone For A Genius, A Piscina For A Christian, A Treasure For A Man Of Parts, And An Abyss For A Weakling.

The Secret Of Great Fortunes Without Apparent Cause Is A Crime Forgotten, Forgotten Because It Was Properly Done.

A Husband And Wife Who Have Separate Bedrooms Have Either Drifted Apart Or Found Happiness.

Found Happiness

Any Man, However Blase Or Depraved, Finds His Love Kindled Anew When He Sees Himself Threatened By A Rival.

The World Will Avenge Itself Upon All Happiness In Which It Has No Share.

A Mother Who Is Really A Mother Is Never Free.

Sometimes At The Best Moments A Single Word Or A Look Is Enough.'

Noble Hearts Are Neither Jealous Nor Afraid Because Jealousy Spells Doubt And Fear Spells Pettiness.

It Is Beyond A Doubt That During The Sixteenth Century, And The Years Immediately Preceding And Following It, Poisoning Had Been Brought To A Pitch Of Perfection Which Remains Unknown To Modern Chemistry, But Which Is Indisputably Proved By History. Italy, The Cradle Of Modern Science, Was At That Time, The Inventor And Mistress Of These Secrets, Many Of Which Are Lost.

My Further Advice On Your Relations To Women Is Based Upon That Other Motto Of Chivalry, "serve All, Love One."

When Will Conventional Good Manners Become Attractive? When Will Ladies Of Fashion Exhibit Their Shoulders A Little Less And Their Affability And Wit A Little More?

It Is The Mark Of A Great Man That He Puts To Flight All Ordinary Calculations. He Is At Once Sublime And Touching, Childlike And Of The Race Of Giants.

Nothing Is A Greater Impediment To Being On Good Terms With Others Than Being Ill At Ease With Yourself.

The Prodigality Of Millionaires Is Comparable Only To Their Greed Of Gain. Let Some Whim Or Passion Seize Them And Money Is Of No Account. In Fact These Croesuses Find Whims And Passions Harder To Come By Than Gold.

Marriage Is A Fierce Battle Before Which The Two Partners Ask Heaven For Its Blessing, Because Loving Each Other Is The Most Audacious Of Enterprises; The Battle Is Not Slow To Start, And Victory, That Is To Say Freedom, Goes To The Cleverest.

A Wife Is Property That One Acquires By Contract, She Is Transferable, Because Possession Of Her Requires Title; In Fact, Woman Is, So To Speak, Only Man's Appendage; Consequently, Slice, Cut, Clip Her, You Have All Rights To Her.

Woman Is A Delightful Instrument Of Pleasure, But It Is Necessary To Know Its Trembling Strings, To Study The Position Of Them, The Timid Keyboard, The Fingering So Changeful And Capricious Which Befits It.

If We Could But Paint With The Hand What We See With The Eye.

The Smallest Flower Is A Thought, A Life Answering To Some Feature Of The Great Whole, Of Whom They Have A Persistent Intuition.

A Husband And Wife Who Are In The Habit Of Occupying Separate Rooms Are Either Beings Apart, Or They Have Found Happiness. Either They Hate Or They Adore Each Other.

Found Happiness

Friendships Last When Each Friend Thinks He Has A Slight Superiority Over The Other.

The Privilege Of Feeling At Home Everywhere Belongs Only To Kings, Wolves And Robbers.

Women Themselves Are So Happy, And So Beautiful, When They're Strong, That They Naturally Choose Powerful Men, Even If That Power's So Enermous There's A Real Risk It Could Shatter Them.

Nowhere But In France Are People So Strictly Observant Of Great Matters And So Disdainfully Indulgent About Small Ones.

Our Most Bitter Enemies Are Our Own Kith And Kin. Kings Have No Brothers, No Sons, No Mother!

A Mother's Life, You See, Is One Long Succession Of Dramas, Now Soft And Tender, Now Terrible. Not An Hour But Has Its Joys And Fears.

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?

To Get A Traveling Salesman Drunk Is The Height Of Impossibility.

Marriage Must Perforce Fight Against The All-devouring Monster Of Habit.

Finance, Like Time, Devours Its Own Children.

Nobody Loves A Woman Because She Is Handsome Or Ugly, Stupid Or Intelligent. We Love Because We Love.

Falling In Love

He Who Best Knows The World Will Love It Least.

If You Are To Judge A Man, You Must Know His Secret Thoughts, Sorrows, And Feelings; To Know Merely The Outward Events Of A Man's Life Would Only Serve To Make A Chronological Table-a Fool's Notion Of History.

A Rent In Your Clothes Is A Mishap, A Stain On Them Is A Vice.

The Passion Of Love Is Essentially Selfish, While Motherhood Widens The Circle Of Our Feelings.

What Patient Can Trust The Knowledge Of A Physician Without Reputation Or Furniture, In A Period When Publicity Is All-powerful And When The Government Gilds The Lamp Posts On The Place De La Concorde In Order To Dazzle The Poor?

The Future Of A Nation Lies In The Hands Of Mothers.

Jealousy, An Eminently Credulous And Suspicious Passion, Allows Fancy The Greatest Possible Play. But It Does Not Bestow Wit, It Banishes All Sense.

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