Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.
Honore de BalzacEmulation is not rivalry. Emulation is the child of ambition; rivalry is the unlovable daughter of envy.
Honore de BalzacWhen Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.
Honore de BalzacLove may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.
Honore de BalzacWhat 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, Eugรจne 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.
Honore de Balzac