The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.
Honore de BalzacAh! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life's duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.
Honore de BalzacThe habits of every animal are, at least in the eyes of man, constantly similar in all ages. But the habits, the clothes, the words and the dwelling of a prince, a banker, an artist, a bourgeois, a priest and a pauper, are wholly dissimilar and change at the will of civilizations.
Honore de BalzacOnly when one has learned to acknowledge that wiser minds have made better words to come out of our mouths may we truly, then, begin to speak them.
Honore de Balzac