Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.

It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide.

There are men who put the weight of a coffin into their deliberations as they bargain for Cashmere shawls for their wives, as they go up the staircase of a theatre, or think of going...

Men die in despair, while spirits die in ecstasy.

Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.

If the artist does not fling himself, without reflecting, into his work, as Curtis flung himself into the yawning gulf, as the soldier flings himself into the enemy’s trenches, and if, once in this crater,...

Cruelty and fear shake hands together. An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man’s entire existence.

How did you get back?’ asked Vautrin. ‘I walked,’ replied Eugene.’I wouldn’t like half-pleasures, myself,’ observed the tempter. ‘I’d want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in...

A young bride is like a plucked flower; but a guilty wife is like a flower that had been walked over.

All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.

Lovers have a way of using this word, nothing, which implies exactly the opposite.

Conviction brings a silent, indefinable beauty into faces made of the commonest human clay; the devout worshiper at any shrine reflects something of its golden glow, even as the glory of a noble love shines...

Love is the most melodious of all harmonies and the sentiment of love is innate. Woman is a delightful instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its trembling strings, to study the position...

No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.

It would be curious to know what leads a man to become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father’s craft.

The habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the countenance.

A courage which looks easy and yet is rare; the courage of a teacher repeating day after day the same lessons – the least rewarded of all forms of courage

Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?

What 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...

A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.

Suicide, moreover, was at the time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?

Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love.

The duchess turned on Eugène with one of those insolent stares that envelop a man from head to foot, flatten him out, and leave him at zero.

There’s nothing so fearsome as the revolt of a sheep,” said de Marsay.

Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in...

A lover always thinks of his mistress first and himself second; with a husband it runs the other way.

Many men are deeply moved by the mere semblance of suffering in a woman; they take the look of pain for a sign of constancy or of love.

Political liberty, the peace of a nation, and science itself are gifts for which Fate demands a heavy tax in blood!

Misfortune, no less than happiness, inspires us to dream.

To that point, he had always found the vicomtesse overflowing with friendly politeness, that sweet-flowing grace conferred by an aristocratic education, and which is never truly there unless it comes, automatically and unthinkingly, straight from...

If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.

Love is the poetry of the senses.

What is art? Nature concentrated.

(…) Qual sera o destino de Helène? O meu, certamente. Que meios têm as mães de assegurar às suas filhas que o homem ao qual elas serão entregues será o esposo de seus corações? As...

All happiness depends on courage and work.

Have you ever plunged into the immensity of space and time by reading the geological treatises of Cuvier? Borne away on the wings of his genius, have you hovered over the illimitable abyss of the...

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.

Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.

To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.

To our shame a woman is never so much attached to us as when we suffer

[Raphael’s] great superiority is due to the instinctive sense which, in him, seems to desire to shatter form. Form is, in his figures, what it is in ourselves, an interpreter for the communication of ideas...

Ha a nők elmésnek, tehetségesnek találják, a férfiak el fogják hinni, hogy az, hacsak maga ki nem ábrándítja őket. Akkor aztán mindent akarhat, mindenütt megvetheti a lábát. Akkor majd megtudja, hogy a világ nem egyéb,...

A mother who is really a mother is never free.

A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.

The country is provincial; it becomes ridiculous when it tries to ape Paris.

They must have the defects of their qualities.

Was she acting entirely consciously? No: women are always sincere, even in the midst of their most shocking duplicities, because it is always some natural emotion which dominates them. Perhaps, having given this young man...

Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.