How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!
Honore de BalzacThe Police and the Society of Jesus posses in common the virtue of never forsaking their enemies as friends.
Honore de BalzacJournalists grow accustomed to seeing evil and they let it pass; they proceed to approve it, and they end by committing it themselves.
Honore de BalzacAccording 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.
Honore de Balzac