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White And Shining Virgin Of All Human Virtues, Ark Of The Covenant Between Earth And Heaven, Tender And Strong Companion Partaking Of The Lion And Of The Lamb, Prayer! Prayer Will Give You The Key Of Heaven! Bold And Pure As Innocence, Strong, Like All That Is Single And Simple, This Glorious, Invincible Queen Rests, Nevertheless, On The Material World; She Takes Possession Of It; Like The Sun, She Clasps It In A Circle Of Light.

-Honore De Balzac

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White And Shining Virgin

Honore De Balzac

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White And Shining Virgin Of All Human Virtues, Ark Of The Covenant Between Earth And Heaven, Tender And Strong Companion Partaking Of The Lion And Of The Lamb, Prayer! Prayer Will Give You The Key Of Heaven! Bold And Pure As Innocence, Strong, Like All That Is Single And Simple, This Glorious, Invincible Queen Rests, Nevertheless, On The Material World; She Takes Possession Of It; Like The Sun, She Clasps It In A Circle Of Light.

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A Society Of Atheists Would Immediately Invent A Religion.

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.

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.

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

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

Power Is Action; The Electoral Principle Is Discussion. No Political Action Is Possible When Discussion Is Permanently Established.

Virtue, Perhaps, Is Nothing More Than Politeness Of Soul.

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.

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

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

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.

Ah! What Pleasure It Must Be To A Woman To Suffer For The One She Loves!

But Also Remember: If You Have Any Genuine Feelings, Hide Them Like Treasure; Never Let Anyone So Much As Suspect Them, Or You're Lost. Instead Of Being The Executioner, You'll Be The Victim. And If You Ever Fall In Love, Keep That Absolutely Secret! Never Breathe A Word Until You're Completely Sure Of The Person To Whom You Open Your Heart. And To Protect That Love, Even Before You Feel It, Learn To Despise The World.

Falling In Love

This Coffee Falls Into Your Stomach, And Straightway There Is A General Commotion. Ideas Begin To Move Like The Battalions Of The Grand Army Of The Battlefield, And The Battle Takes Place. Things Remembered Arrive At Full Gallop, Ensuing To The Wind. The Light Cavalry Of Comparisons Deliver A Magnificent Deploying Charge, The Artillery Of Logic Hurry Up With Their Train And Ammunition, The Shafts Of With Start Up Like Sharpshooters. Similes Arise, The Paper Is Covered With Ink; For The Struggle Commences And Is Concluded With Torrents Of Black Water, Just As A Battle With Powder.

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

Marriage Must Incessantly Contend With A Monster That Devours Everything: Familiarity.

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?

If We Study Nature Attentively In Its Great Evolutions As In Its Minutest Works, We Cannot Fail To Recognize The Possibility Of Enchantment - Giving To That Word Its Exact Significance.

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

There Is Nothing Original; All Is Reflected Light.

Men Are Such Dupes By Choice, That He Who Would Impose Upon Others Never Need Be At A Loss To Find Ready Victims.

Does Anyone Know Where These Gondolas Of Paris Come From? [fr., Ne Sait On Pas Ou Viennent Ces Gondoles Parisiennes?]

A Penniless Man Who Has No Ties To Bind Him Is Master Of Himself At Any Rate, But A Luckless Wretch Who Is In Love No Longer Belongs To Himself, And May Not Take His Own Life. Love Makes Us Almost Sacred In Our Own Eyes; It Is The Life Of Another That We Revere Within Us; Then And So Begins For Us The Cruelest Trouble Of All.

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.

When Women Love, They Forgive Everything...

Memories Beautify Life, But The Capacity To Forget Makes It Bearable.

We Do Not Wish Success Yet We Obtain It. Always We Find What We Are Not Looking For. These Words Are Too True Not To Become A Proverb Some Day.

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

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.

All Happiness Depends On Courage And Work.

No Man Has Ever Yet Discovered The Way To Give Friendly Advice To Any Woman, Not Even To His Own Wife.

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

Falling In Love

From The Manner In Which A Woman Draws Her Thread At Every Stitch Of Her Needlework, Any Other Woman Can Surmise Her Thoughts.

For Avarice Begins Where Poverty Ends.

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.

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

Love Is Precisely To The Moral Nature What The Sun Is To The Earth.

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

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

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

Love, According To Our Contemporary Poets, Is A Privilege Which Two Beings Confer Upon One Another, Whereby They May Mutually Cause One Another Much Sorrow Over Absolutely Nothing.

Ideas Devour The Ages As Men Are Devoured By Their Passions. When Man Is Cured, Human Nature Will Cure Itself Perhaps.

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

Let Nothing Dupe You! Such Is The Horrible Maxim That Acts As A Solvent Upon Every Noble Feeling Man Experiences.

Want Him To Be More Of A Man? Try Being More Of A Woman!

First Love Is A Kind Of Vaccination Which Saves A Man From Catching The Complaint The Second Time.

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

The Fame Of Surgeons Resembles The Fame Of Actors, Who Live Only During Their Lifetime And Whose Talent Is No Longer Appreciable Once They Have Disappeared.

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

What Is Art? Nature Concentrated.

It Is As Easy To Dream A Book As It Is Hard To Write One.

Marriage Must Fight Constantly Against A Monster Which Devours Everything: Routine.

It Is Only In The Act Of Nursing That A Woman Realizes Her Motherhood In Visible And Tangible Fashion; It Is A Joy Of Every Moment.

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

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

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

The Mind, Too, Has Its Regimen. It Needs Gymnastics, Just Like The Body Does.

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

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

Necessity Is The Spur Of Genius.

Resignation Is A Daily Suicide.

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.

Men Are Perfectly Willing To Abandon A Woman But They Refuse To Be Abandoned By Her.

Those Sweetly Smiling Angels With Pensive Looks, Innocent Faces, And Cash-boxes For Hearts.

By Resorting To Self-resignation, The Unfortunate Consummate.

I Prefer Thought To Action, An Idea To A Transaction, Contemplation To Activity.

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

To Forget Is The Great Secret Of Strong Creative Natures; To Forget Is The Way Nature Herself Who Knows No Past And Who At Every Hour Begins The Mysteries Of Her Untiring Labors Afresh.

The Winter's Frost Must Rend The Burr Of The Nut Before The Fruit Is Seen. So Adversity Tempers The Human Heart, To Discover Its Real Worth.

My Writing Table Has Seen All My Wretchedness, Knows All My Plans, Has Overheard All My Thoughts.

The Pleasures Of Love Proceed Successively From A Distich To A Quatrain, From A Quatrain To A Sonnet, From A Sonnet To A Ballad, From A Ballad To An Ode, From An Ode To A Cantata, And From A Cantata To A Dithyramb. A Husband Who Begins With The Dithyramb Is A Fool.

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

Behind Every Fortune There Is A Crime.

When We Drink Coffee, Ideas March In Like The Army

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.

No Woman Allows Her Lover To Descend From His Pedestal. Even A God Is Not Forgiven The Slightest Pettiness.

Neither The Passions Not Justice Nor Politics Nor The Great Social Forces Ever Consider The Victims They Strike.

Glory And Fame Mean Twelve Thousand Francs' Worth Of Paid Articles In The Newspapers And Five Thousand Crowns' Worth Of Dinners.

What Moralists Describe As The Mysteries Of The Human Heart Are Solely The Deceiving Thoughts, The Spontaneous Impulses Of Self-regard. The Sudden Changes In Character, About Which So Much Has Been Said, Are Instinctive Calculations For The Furtherance Of Our Own Pleasures. Seeing Himself Now In His Fine Clothes, His New Gloves And Shoes, Eugène De Rastignac Forgot His Noble Resolve. Youth, When It Swerves Toward Wrong, Dares Not Look In The Mirror Of Conscience; Maturity Has Already Seen Itself There. That Is The Whole Difference Between The Two Phases Of Life.

Whereas Scoundrels Become Reconciled After Knifing One Another, Lovers Break Up Irrevocably Over A Mere Glance Or Word.

People Who Are In Love Suspect Nothing Or Everything.

Solitude Is Fine, But You Need Someone To Tell You That Solitude Is Fine.

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

The Election Of A Deputy To The Legislature Offers A Noble And Majestic Spectacle Comparable Only To The Delivery Of A Child. It Involves The Same Efforts, The Same Impurities, The Same Laceration, And The Same Triumph.

La Femme Marie E Est Un Esclave Qu'il Faut Savoir Mettre Sur Un Tro" N E. A Married Woman Is A Slave Whom One Must Put On A Throne.

Though Your Vulgarian Does Not Readily Admit That Feelings Can Change Overnight, Certainly Two Lovers Often Part Far More Abruptly Than They Came Together.

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.

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.

Today Nobility Is Gone: There Is Only A Peerage.

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?

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

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.

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

Poets And Men Of Action Differ: The Former Yield To Their Feelings In Order To Reproduce Them In Lively Colors, And Therefore Judge Only Ex Post Facto; The Latter Feel And Judge At One And The Same Time.

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.

I Am A Galley Slave To Pen And Ink.

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.

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

Our Worst Misfortunes Never Happen, And Most Miseries Lie In Anticipation.

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

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

Small Natures Require Despotism To Exercise Their Sinews, As Great Souls Thirst For Equality To Give Play To Their Heart.

Un Homme N'a Jamais Pu E Lever Sa Ma|"tresse Jusqu'a' Lui; Mais Une Femme Place Toujours Son Amant Aussi Haut Qu'elle. A Man Can Never Elevate His Mistress To His Rank, But A Woman Can Always Place Her Lover As High As She.

With Monuments As With Men, Position Means Everything.

During The Great Storms Of Our Lives We Imitate Those Captains Who Jettison Their Weightiest Cargo.

Possibly The Words Materialism And Spirituality Express Two Sides Of One And The Same Fact.

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

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

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.

According To Man's Environment, Society Has Made As Many Different Types Of Men As There Are Varieties In Zoology. The Differences Between A Soldier, A Workman, A Statesman, A Tradesman, A Sailor, A Poet, A Pauper And A Priest, Are More Difficult To Seize, But Quite Considerable As The Differences Between A Wolf, A Lion, An Ass, A Crow, A Sea-calf, A Sheep, And So On.

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.

Vice Is Perhaps A Desire To Learn Everything.

Desire To Learn

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

Show Me The Woman, However Loyal, Who Does Not Seek To Rouse Desire.

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.

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.

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

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.

An Ugly Woman, Married To King Henry Viii, Would Have Defied The Axe And Daunted Her Husband's Infidelities.

All We Are Is In The Soul.

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.

Love Knows Nothing Of Modesty.

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

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

Love Or Hatred Must Constantly Increase Between Two Persons Who Are Always Together; Every Moment Fresh Reasons Are Found For Loving Or Hating Better.

Doubt Follows White-winged Hope With Trembling Steps.

Hatred Like Love Feeds On The Merest Trifles.

Most Geometricians, Chemists, Mathematicians, And Great Scientists Submit Religion To Reason Only To Discover A Problem As Unsolvable As That Of Squaring A Circle.

Talent Is A Flame, But Genius Is A Fire.

For Businessmen, The World Is A Bale Of Banknotes In Circulation; For Most Young Men, It Is A Woman; For Some Women, It Is A Man; And For Others It May Be A Salon, A Coterie, A Part Of Town Or A Whole City.

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.

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

Clouds Symbolize The Veils That Shroud God.

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 Impossible Is Justified By The Fact That It Occurred

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

We Must Have Books For Recreation And Entertainment, As Well As Books For Instruction And For Business; The Former Are Agreeable, The Latter Useful, And The Human Mind Requires Both. The Cannon Law And The Codes Of Justinian Shall Have Due Honor, And Reign At The Universities; But Homer And Virgil Need Not Therefore Be Banished. We Will Cultivate The Olive And The Vine, But Without Eradicating The Myrtle And The Rose.

Science Is The Language Of The Temporal World; Love Is That Of The Spiritual World. Man, Indeed, Describes More Than He Explains; While The Angelic Spirit Sees And Understands. Science Saddens Man; Love Enraptures The Angel; Science Is Still Seeking; Love Has Found.

Finance, Like Time, Devours Its Own Children.

How Natural It Is To Destroy What We Cannot Possess, To Deny What We Do Not Understand, And To Insult What We Envy!

The Weakest Being On Earth Can Accomplish Feats Of Strength. The Frailest Urchin Will Ring Every Doorbell On The Street In Arctic Weather Or Hoist Himself Aloft To Inscribe His Name On A Virgin Monument.

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.

In The First Woman We Love, We Love Everything. Growing Older, We Love The Woman Only.

Sensuality Is The Death Of The Soul.

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.

Our Most Natural Feelings Are Those We Are Loath To Confess, And Fatuity Is Among Them.

Natural Feelings

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

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.

The Majority Of Husbands Remind Me Of An Orangutan Trying To Play The Violin.

Virtue, My Pet, Is An Abstract Idea, Varying In Its Manifestations With The Surroundings. Virtue In Provence, In Constantinople, In London, And In Paris Bears Very Different Fruit, But Is None The Less Virtue.

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

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

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.

Some Troubles, Like A Protested Note Of A Solvent Debtor, Bear Interest.

Conscience Is Our Unerring Judge Until We Finally Stifle It.

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.

A Mother Who Is Really A Mother Is Never Free.

Those Who Spend Too Fast Never Grow Rich.

Nothing So Fortifies A Friendship As A Belief On The Part Of One Friend That He Is Superior To The Other.

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.

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.

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

The Motto Of Chivalry Is Also The Motto Of Wisdom; To Serve All, But Love Only One.

To Kill A Relative Of Whom You Are Tired Is Something. But To Inherit His Property Afterwards, That Is Genuine Pleasure.

The Duration Of Passion Is Proportionate With The Original Resistance Of The Woman.

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.

I Declare, On My Soul And Conscience, That The Attainment Of Power, Or Of A Great Name In Literature, Seemed To Me An Easier Victory Than A Success With Some Young, Witty, And Gracious Lady Of High Degree.

It Is Quite Right What They Say: The Three Most Beautiful Sights In The World Are A Ship In Full Sail, A Galloping Horse, And A Woman Dancing.

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.

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.

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

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

Marriage Is An Institution Necessary To The Maintenance Of Society But Contrary To The Laws Of Nature.

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.

[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.

Conviction Brings A Silent, Indefinable Beauty Into Faces Made Of The Commonest Human Clay; The Devout Worshiper At Any Shrine Reflects Something Of Its Golden Glow, Even As The Glory Of A Noble Love Shines Like A Sort Of Light From A Woman's Face.

Un Mari, Comme Un Gouvernement, Ne Doit Jamais Avouer De Faute. A Husband, Like A Government, Never Needs To Admit A Fault.

All Human Power Is A Compound Of Time And Patience.

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.

Passion Is Born Deaf And Dumb.

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

Good Befalls Us While We Sleep, Sometimes.

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

Men Die In Despair, While Spirits Die In Ecstasy.

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

The Greater A Man's Talents, The More Marked His Idiosyncracies. Yet In The Provinces Originality Is Considered Perilously Close To Lunacy.

The Day Will Dawn When Europe Will Believe Only In The Man Who Tramples Her Underfoot.

Many Men Nourish A Pride Which Urges Them To Conceal Their Struggles And Show Themselves Only As Conquerors.

Hatred Is The Vice Of Narrow Souls; They Feed It With All Their Littleness, And Make It The Pretext Of Base Tyrannies.

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

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

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

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.

For The Person Who Loves God, Worship Is The Daily Bread Of Patience.

How Fondly Swindlers Coddle Their Dupes! No Mother Is As Caressing Or Thoughtful Towards Her Adored Child As A Merchant In Hypocrisy Toward His Milch-cow.

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.

When In Turkey, Do As The Turkeys Do.

The Wounds Of Self-love Turn Incurable When The Oxide Of Self-love Gets Into Them.

Many Of Us Marvel At The Icy Insensitivity With Which Women Snuff Out Their Armours. But If They Did Not Blot Out The Past In This Manner, Life For Them Would Lose All Dignity And They Could Never Resist The Fatal Familiarities To Which They Once Submitted.

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