I am not deep, but I am very wide. Honore de Balzac More Quotes by Honore de Balzac More Quotes From Honore de Balzac Neither the passions not justice nor politics nor the great social forces ever consider the victims they strike. Honore de Balzac passion victim justice A man's own vanity is a swindler that never lacks for a dupe. Honore de Balzac dupes vanity men 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. Honore de Balzac women passion believe The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred. Honore de Balzac here-and-there hatred heart To say to a rich man: You are poor! is to tell the Archbishop of Granada that his sermons are worthless. Honore de Balzac rich poor men Conventions are often more cruel than the law. Honore de Balzac conventions law He who best knows the world will love it least. Honore de Balzac knows world 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. Honore de Balzac cities men world Equality may be the law, but no human power can install it. Honore de Balzac humans law may There are words which cut like steel. Honore de Balzac cutting steel Women are as they are; they necessarily have the defects of their virtues. Honore de Balzac defects women virtue Woman has this in common with angels, that suffering beings belong especially to her. Honore de Balzac women angel suffering Love is the only way on which even the dim-witted reaches certain heights. Honore de Balzac height love-is way The mind, too, has its regimen. It needs gymnastics, just like the body does. Honore de Balzac gymnastics mind doe 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. Honore de Balzac women female desire 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. Honore de Balzac women action feelings Nature endows woman alternately with a particular strength which helps her to suffer and a weakness which counsels her to be resigned. Honore de Balzac women weakness suffering If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible. Honore de Balzac ignorant would-be civilization 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. Honore de Balzac women passion europe Nothing is irredeemably ugly but sin. Honore de Balzac ugliness ugly sin
