Honore de Balzac Heart Quotations

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.

Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.

Small natures require despotism to exercise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give play to their heart.

Noble hearts are neither jealous nor afraid because jealousy spells doubt and fear spells pettiness.

A woman in the depths of despair proves so persuasive that she wrenches the forgiveness lurking deep in the heart of her lover. This is all the more true when that woman is young, pretty, and so decollete as to emerge from the neck of her gown in the costume of Eve.

Mud, raised by hurricanes, wells up in the noblest and purest of hearts.

The winter's frost must rend the burr of the nut before the fruit is seen. So adversity tempers the human heart, to discover its real worth.

Woman is a most charming creature, who changes her heart as easily as she does her gloves.

A woman's greatest charm consists in a constant appeal to a man's generosity by a gracious declaration of helplessness which fills him with pride and awakens the most magnificent feelings in his heart.

Give to a wounded heart seclusion; consolation nor reason ever effected anything in such a case.

Kindness steers no easy course. Attributing it to character, we seldom recognize the secret efforts of a noble heart, whereas we reward really wicked people for the evil they refrain from committing.

He has great tranquility of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men.

But also remember: if you have any genuine feelings, hide them like treasure; never let anyone so much as suspect them, or you're lost. Instead of being the executioner, you'll be the victim. And if you ever fall in love, keep that absolutely secret! Never breathe a word until you're completely sure of the person to whom you open your heart. And to protect that love, even before you feel it, learn to despise the world.

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 for the furtherance of our own pleasures. Seeing himself now in his fine clothes, his new gloves and shoes, Eugène de Rastignac forgot his noble resolve. Youth, when it swerves toward wrong, dares not look in the mirror of conscience; maturity has already seen itself there. That is the whole difference between the two phases of life.

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

If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way down.

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

When an intelligent man reaches the point of inviting self-explanation and offers surrendering the key to his heart, he is assuredly riding a drunken horse.

Is there any instinct more deeply implanted in the heart of man than the pride of protection, a protection which is constantly exerted for a fragile and defenceless creature?

The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.

No woman has ever existed who did not know perfectly well in her heart what to expect from the superiority or inferiority of a rival.

The causes that govern the heart appear to be wholly alien to the results achieved. Are the forces that moved a desperate criminal the same that fill a martyr with pride, as both mount the scaffold?

The happier a man, the more apt he is to tremble. In hearts exclusively tender, anxiety and jealousy are in exact proportion to happiness.

Charity is not one of the virtues practiced on the stock market. The heart of a bank is but one of many viscera.

The man whom fate employs to awaken love in the heart of a young girl is often unaware of his work and therefore leaves it uncompleted.

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

You cannot pluck love out of your heart as you would pull a tooth.

Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole.

There are no little events with the heart. It magnifies everything; it places in the same scales the fall of an empire of fourteen years and the dropping of a woman's glove, and almost always the glove weighs more than the empire.

Those sweetly smiling angels with pensive looks, innocent faces, and cash-boxes for hearts.

Economized love is never real love.

White hair often covers the head, but the heart that holds it is ever young.

She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered.

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.

The first thing necessary to win the heart of a woman is opportunity.

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