Believe everything you hear said of the world nothing is too impossibly bad.

— Honore de Balzac

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

— Honore de Balzac

But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.

— Honore de Balzac

Chance, my dear, is the sovereign deity in child-bearing.

— Honore de Balzac

Clouds symbolize the veils that shroud God.

— Honore de Balzac

Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions envy is only moved to malice.

— Honore de Balzac

Envy is the most stupid of vices for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.

— Honore de Balzac

Equality may be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

— Honore de Balzac

Finance, like time, devours its own children.

— Honore de Balzac

First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the complaint the second time.

— Honore de Balzac