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When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.

Honore de Balzac

Gratitude is a fool’s word; we find it in the dictionary, but it is not in the heart of man.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Dictionary Fools Gratitude Heart Man World
The greater a man’s talents, the more marked his idiosyncracies. Yet in the provinces originality is considered perilously close to lunacy.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Close Greatness Mad Man Mark Original Talent
The victory always has a lot of parents but the defeat is always an orphan.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Defeat Orphan Parents Victory
Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Need Solitude Yourself
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
Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Intelligence Love Ugly Woman
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
Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littleness, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Food Hate Small Soul Vice
In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Dive Happiness. Grave Pearl
In the first woman we love, we love everything. Growing older, we love the woman only.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Growth Love Time Woman
The boor covers himself, the rich man or the fool adorns himself, and the elegant man gets dressed.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Admire Book Cover Dress Elegant Rich
People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Fortune Happiness Misfortune Ourselves People
A courage which looks easy & yet is rare; the courage of a teacher repeating day after day the same lessons – the least rewarded of all forms of courage.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Courage Easy Form Lesson Repeat Reward Teacher
Like hunger, physical love is a necessity. But man’s appetite for amour is never so regular or so sustained as his appetite for the delights of the table.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Appetite Hungry Love Man Necessary Sex
If we all said to people’s faces what we say behind one another’s backs, society would be impossible.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Face Impossible People Society
The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.
HONORE DE BALZAC

Feature Flower Intuition Persistence Small Thinking

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.

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When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.

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Popular Authors

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