“Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.”
Source: Father Goriot
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Famous Honore de Balzac Quotes
“I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity.”
Source: Louis Lambert
“I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.”
Source: CliffsNotes on Balzac's Pere Goriot
Source: Old Goriot: Classic French Literature
Source: Old Goriot: Classic French Literature
“Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.”
“A beautiful book is a victory won in all the battlefields of human thought.”
“For the person who loves God, worship is the daily bread of patience.”
“The privilege of feeling at home everywhere belongs only to kings, wolves and robbers.”
“Finance, like time, devours its own children.”
Source: The Firm of Nucingen
“Physically, a man is a man for a much longer time than a woman is a woman.”
“He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.”
“Rare is the man who suffers no remorse as he passes from the state of confidant to that of rival.”
“The more illegal a profit, the more tenaciously a man clings to it.”
“Men are perfectly willing to abandon a woman but they refuse to be abandoned by her.”
“Gratitude is a fool's word; we find it in the dictionary, but it is not in the heart of man.”
“To be happy, a man must love his wife as she chooses to be loved.”
Source: Seraphita: Works of Balzac
Source: Seraphita: Works of Balzac
“To promote laughter without joining in it greatly heightens the effect.”