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Virtue Is Always Too Much Of A Piece And Too Ignorant Of Those Shades Of Feeling And Of Temperament That Enable Us To Squint When We Are Placed In A False Position.

-Honore De Balzac

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Virtue Is Always Too

Honore De Balzac

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Virtue Is Always Too Much Of A Piece And Too Ignorant Of Those Shades Of Feeling And Of Temperament That Enable Us To Squint When We Are Placed In A False Position.

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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 Very Difficult To Pass From Pleasure To Work. Accordingly More Poems Have Been Swallowed Up By Sorrow Than Ever Happiness Caused To Blaze Forth In Unparalleled Radiance.

Clouds Signify The Veil Of The Most High.

Our Energies Are Often Stimulated By The Necessity Of Supporting A Being Weaker Than Ourselves.

I Yield To Your Wishes. It Is The Privilege Of The Women Whom We Love More Than They Love Us To Make The Men Who Love Them Ignore The Ordinary Rules Of Common-sense.

Virtue Is Not A Thing You Can Have By Halves; It Is Or It Is Not.

A Deist Is An Atheist With An Eye Cocked For The Off-chance Of Some Advantage.

Hope Is A Memory That Desires, The Memory Is A Memory That Has Enjoyed.

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

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?

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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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.

One Admirable Trait In Women Is Their Lack Of Illusions About Themselves. They Never Reason About Their Most Blameworthy Actions; Their Feelings Carry Them Away. Even Their Dissimulation Comes Naturally To Them, And In Them Crime Is Free Of All Baseness. Most Of The Time They Simply Do Not Know How It Happened.

Priests, Magistrates And Ladies Never Quite Take Off Their Gowns.

A Good Husband Is Never The First To Go To Sleep At Night Or The Last To Awake In The Morning.

There Is Nothing Original; All Is Reflected Light.

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

They Ended As All Great Passions Do End - By A Misunderstanding.

When One Has No Particular Talent For Anything, One Takes To The Pen.

What A Thing Of Fantasy A Woman May Become After Dusk.

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The Love Of Nature Is The Only Love That Does Not Deceive Human Hopes.

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When One Of Those Skirt-bearing Animals Has Set Herself Up Above All By Permitting Herself To Be Deified, No Power On Earth Can Be As Proud As She.

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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

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Desire To Learn

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Women See Everything Or Nothing According To The Inclination Of Their Hearts. Love Is Their Sole Light.

Love Knows Nothing Of Modesty.

A Mother's Happiness Is Like A Beacon, Lighting Up The Future But Reflected Also On The Past In The Guise Of Fond Memories.

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You Cannot Pluck Love Out Of Your Heart As You Would Pull A Tooth.

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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.

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

A Lover Teaches A Wife All Her Husband Has Kept From Her.

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.

One Should Believe In Marriage As In The Immortality Of The Soul.

The Woman You Buy Takes A Great Deal Of Money. The Woman Who Gives Herself To You Takes All Your Money.

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Genius Is Answerable Only To Itself; It Is The Sole Judge Of The Means, Since It Alone Knows The End; Thus Genius Must Consider Itself As Above The Law, For It Is The Task Of Genius To Remake The Law; Moreover The Man Who Frees Himself From His Time And Place May Take Everything, Hazard Everything, For Everything Is His By Right.

When Attempted Self-destruction Does Not Cure A Man Of Life, It Cures Him Of Voluntary Death.

In Love, What A Woman Mistakes For Disgust Is Actually Clearsightedness. If She Does Not Admire A Man, She Scorns Him.

The Woman Who Is About To Deceive Her Husband Always Carefully Thinks Out How She Is Going To Act, But She Is Never Logical.

If The Human Heart Sometimes Finds Moments Of Pause As It Ascends The Slopes Of Affection, It Rarely Halts On The Way Down.

It Is Always Assumed By The Empty-headed, Who Chatter About Themselves For Want Of Something Better, That People Who Do Not Discuss Their Affairs Openly Must Have Something To Hide.

A Year At The Breast Is Quite Enough; Children Who Are Suckled Longer Are Said To Grow Stupid, And I Am All For Popular Sayings.

Great Love Affairs Start With Champagne And End With Tisane.

We Are Scarcely Apt To Berate The Source Of Enjoyment.

[raphael's] Great Superiority Is Due To The Instinctive Sense Which, In Him, Seems To Desire To Shatter Form. Form Is, In His Figures, What It Is In Ourselves, An Interpreter For The Communication Of Ideas And Sensations, An Exhaustless Source Of Poetic Inspiration. Every Figure Is A World In Itself, A Portrait Of Which The Original Appeared In A Sublime Vision, In A Flood Of Light, Pointed To By An Inward Voice, Laid Bare By A Divine Finger Which Showed What The Sources Of Expression Had Been In The Whole Past Life Of The Subject.

People Exaggerate Both Happiness And Unhappiness; We Are Never So Fortunate Nor So Unfortunate As People Say We Are.

In Intimate Family Life, There Comes A Moment When Children, Willingly Or No, Become The Judges Of Their Parents.

I Am A Galley Slave To Pen And Ink.

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The Art Of Motherhood Involves Much Silent, Unobtrusive Self-denial, An Hourly Devotion Which Finds No Detail Too Minute.

Imagination Helps The Realism Of Every Detail, And Only Sees The Beauties Of The Work.

Virginity, Like All Monstrosities, Possesses Special Riches And Its Own Absorbing Grandeur. Among The Chaste, Life Forces Are Economized And Thus Gain In Resistance And Durability.

Women, When They Have Made A Sheep Of A Man, Always Tell Him That He Is A Lion With A Will Of Iron.

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.

Noble Passions Are Like Vices: The More They Are Satisfied, The Greater They Grow, Mothers And Gamblers Are Insatiable.

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.

When Women Love Us, They Forgive Us Everything, Even Our Crimes; When They Do Not Love Us, They Give Us Credit For Nothing, Not Even Our Virtues.

Materialism And Spirituality Are Two Pretty Racquets With Which Charlatans In Cap And Gown Make The Same Ball Fly.

Nothing About Me Surprises Me.

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.

Man Can Start With Aversion And End With Love, But If He Begins With Love And Comes Round To Aversion He Will Never Get Back To Love.

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

Mud, Raised By Hurricanes, Wells Up In The Noblest And Purest Of Hearts.

White Hair Often Covers The Head, But The Heart That Holds It Is Ever Young.

As Soon As Coffee Is In Your Stomach, There Is A General Commotion. Ideas Begin To Move…similes Arise, The Paper Is Covered. Coffee Is Your Ally And Writing Ceases To Be A Struggle.

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.

Imaginative, Sanguine Men Will Never Recognize That In Negotiations The Most Dangerous Moment Of All Is When Everything Is Moving According To Their Wishes.

The Best Painters, As They Progress In Reputation And Towards Perfection, Are Found To Dispense More And More With The Technique Of The Art, For Simpler Methods. Simplicity Never Fails To Charm.

Among Fifty Percent Of Your Married Couples, The Husband Worries Very Little About What His Wife Is Doing, Provided She Is Doing All He Wishes.

Like Most Young People, These Two Attributed To The World Their Own Intelligence And Virtues. Youth Who Knows No Failure Has No Mercy On The Faults Of Other People; But It Has Also A Sublime Faith In Them.

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

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.

Physically, A Man Is A Man For A Much Longer Time Than A Woman Is A Woman.

To Speak Of Love Is To Make Love.

One Of The Most Detestable Habits Of Lilliputian Minds Is To Find Their Own Littleness In Others.

Talent Is A Flame, But Genius Is A Fire.

By And Large, Women Have A Faith And A Morality Peculiar To Themselves; They Believe In The Reality Of Everything That Serves Their Interest And Their Passions.

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

He Who Best Knows The World Will Love It Least.

Emulation Is Not Rivalry. Emulation Is The Child Of Ambition; Rivalry Is The Unlovable Daughter Of Envy.

A Man May And Ought To Pride Himself More On His Will Than On His Talent.

Our Souls Possess The Unknown Power Of Extending As Well As Contracting Space.

Le Mariage Doit Incessamment Combattre Un Monstre Qui De V Ore Tout: L'habitude. Marriage Should Always Combat The Monster That Devours Everything: Habit.

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

A Flow Of Words Is A Sure Sign Of Duplicity.

One Of The Glories Of Society Is To Have Created Woman Where Nature Had Made Only A Female; To Have Created A Continuity Of Desire Where Nature Thought Only Of Perpetuating The Species; And, In Fine, To Have Invented Love.

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

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

Thought Is The Only Treasure That God Sets Outside All Power And Keeps To Serve As A Secret Link Among The Unhappy.

To Those Who Have Exhausted Politics, Nothing Remains But Abstract Thought.

A Sacrament By Virtue Of Which Each Imparts Nothing But Vexations To The Other.

Nos Beaux Sentiments Ne Sont-ils Pas Les Poe Sies De La Volonte ? Aren't Our Best Feelings Poetry Of The Will?

Novelty Is Both Delightful And Deceptive.

Carelessness In Dressing Is Moral Suicide.

When A Woman Starts Talking About Her Duty, Her Regard For Appearances, And Her Respect For Religion, She Raises So Many Bulwarks Which She Delights To See Captured By Storm.

Nothing Is As Heady As The Wine Of Misfortune.

Nothing Is Irredeemably Ugly But Sin.

Love Endows Us With A Sort Of Personal Religion; We Respect Another Live Within Ourselves.

A Vocation Is Born To Us All; Happily Most Of Us Meet Promptly Our Twin,--occupation.

Death Unites As Well As Separates; It Silences All Paltry Feeling.

A Woman In Love Has Full Intelligence Of Her Power; The More Virtuous She Is, The More Effective Her Coquetry.

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

Society Bristles With Enigmas Which Look Hard To Solve. It Is A Perfect Maze Of Intrigue.

Fools Gain Greater Advantages Through Their Weakness Than Intelligent Men Through Their Strength. We Watch A Great Man Struggling Against Fate And We Do Not Lift A Finger To Help Him. But We Patronize A Grocer Who Is Headed For Bankruptcy.

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

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.

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

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

To Man, Faith; To Woman, Doubt. She Bears The Heavier Burden. Does Not Woman Invariably Suffer For Two?

Do You Know What Is The Hardest Thing In Life? To Make A Choice.

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.

By Dint Of Making Sacrifices, A Man Grows Interested In The Person Who Exacts Them. Great Ladies, Like Courtesans, Know This Truth By Instinct.

Love Is The Most Melodious Of All Harmonies.

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.

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

Power Does Not Consist In Striking With Force Or With Frequency, But In Striking True.

Coffee Falls Into The Stomach... Ideas Begin To Move, Things Remembered Arrive At Full Gallop... The Shafts Of Wit Start Up Like Sharp-shooters, Similes Arise, The Paper Is Covered With Ink...

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.

For Avarice Begins Where Poverty Ends.

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.

All Human Beings Go Through A Previous Life... Who Knows How Many Fleshly Forms The Heir Of Heaven Occupies Before He Can Be Brought To Understand The Value Of That Silence And Solitude Of Spiritual Worlds?

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

A Country Is Strong Which Consists Of Wealthy Families, Every Member Of Whom Is Interested In Defending A Common Treasure; It Is Weak When Composed Of Scattered Individuals, To Whom It Matters Little Whether They Obey Seven Or One, A Russian Or A Corsican, So Long As Each Keeps His Own Plot Of Land, Blind In Their Wretched Egotism, To The Fact That The Day Is Coming When This Too Will Be Torn From Them.

While Seeking Out The Dead, I See Nothing But The Living.

True Lovers Know How Trifling A Thing Is Money Yet How Difficult To Blend With Love!

Thinking Is Seeing.... Every Human Science Is Based On Deduction, Which Is A Slow Process Of Seeing By Which We Work Up From The Effect To The Cause; Or, In A Wider Sense, All Poetry Like Every Work Of Art Proceeds From A Swift Vision Of Things.

Old Men Are Prone To Invest The Futures Of Young Men With Their Own Past Sorrows.

I'm A Great Poet. I Don't Put My Poems On Paper: They Consist Of Actions And Feelings.

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.

Le Bonheur Engloutit Nos Forces, Comme Le Malheur E Teint Nos Vertus. Happiness Engulfs Our Strength, Just As Misfortune Extinguishes Our Virtues.

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

In Painting, You Can Suddenly Come Upon Something So Huge That No-one Can Deal With It.

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