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As a rule, only the poor are generous.

Honore de Balzac

Women see everything or nothing according to the inclination of their hearts. Love is their sole light.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Heart Light Love See Woman
Man is no match for woman where mischief reigns.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Man Mischeif Woman
Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Lying Misery Misfortune Worst
If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man’s life would only serve to make a chronological table-a fool’s notion of history.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Feeling Fools History Judgement Life Man Secret Sorrow
I can no longer think of anything but you. In spite of myself, my imagination carries me to you. I grasp you, I kiss you, I caress you, a thousand of the most amorous caresses take possession of me.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Carry Imagination Kiss Myself Possession Thinking
How sternly we reproach virtue for its failings, how indulgent we are to the better qualities of vice!
HONORE DE BALZAC

Better Failure Quality Vice Virtue
There are two histories : official history, lying, and then secret history, where you find the real causes of events.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Event History Lying Official Reality Reason Secret
How natural it is to destroy what we cannot possess, to deny what we do not understand, and to insult what we envy!
HONORE DE BALZAC

Destroy Insult Jealous Natural Possession
A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Herself Husband Lover Teaching Wife
Virtue is not a thing you can have by halves; it is or it is not.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Acquire Pieces Virtue Whole Yourself
Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to other lives and other tempers, as woman’s destiny requires, have for the most part a mania for making everything about them bend to them.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Destiny Live Maid Old Requirement Woman
True lovers know how trifling a thing is money yet how difficult to blend with love!
HONORE DE BALZAC

Difficult Love Lover Money True
In the first woman we love, we love everything. Growing older, we love the woman only.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Growth Love Time Woman
One should believe in marriage as in the immortality of the soul.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Believe Immortal Marriage Oneself Soul
Men die in despair, while spirits die in ecstasy.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Death Despair Happiness Man Spirit
As a rule, only the poor are generous. Rich people can always find excellent reasons for not handing over twenty thousand francs to a relative.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Excellence Family Generosity Money Poor Reasons Relative Rich Rule
Though the human heart may have to pause for rest when climbing the heights of affection it rarely stops on the slippery slope of hatred.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Affection Hate Heart Human Rare Slope
Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Control Giant Operation
It is easy to sit up and take notice, What is difficult is getting up and taking action.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Action Difficult Easy Notice
Love, according to our contemporary poets, is a privilege which two beings confer upon one another, whereby they may mutually cause one another much sorrow over absolutely nothing.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Love Mutual Poet Privilege Sorrow
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.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Equality Forever Heart Love Poor True Violence Young
Love is perhaps no more than gratitude for pleasure.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Gratitude Happiness Love Pleasure
Want him to be more of a man? Try being more of a woman!
HONORE DE BALZAC

Feature Himself Man Woman
The man who enters his wife’s dressing room is either a philosopher or a fool.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Fools Himself Man Philosophy Wife
No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendly advice to any woman, not even to his own wife.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Discover Friendship Himself Man Way Wife
The more one judges, the less one loves.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Judgement Love Oneself
Women, when they have made a sheep of a man, always tell him that he is a lion with a will of iron.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Man Sheep Strength Willing Woman

As a rule, only the poor are generous.

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As a rule, only the poor are generous.

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