Honore de Balzac

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

The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin

I do not regard a broker as a member of the human race

Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught

Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

It is only in the act of nursing that a woman realizes her motherhood in visible and tangible fashion; it is a joy of every moment

A mother who is really a mother is never free

Love is the poetry of the senses.

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

There are moments in life when all we can bear is the sense that our friend is near us; our wounds would wince at the touch of consoling words, that would reveal the depths of our pain.