Honore de BalzacThinkers

Action is one half of human nature which is comprised of an inner struggle (which belongs to God) with the outcome of external human action (a realm belonging to men).

Adversity tempers the human heart (much like the winter's frost must rend the burr of the nut before the fruit is seen) to discover its real worth.

Advice is a thing no man has ever discovered how to give any woman, not even to his own wife.

Aid is envigorating. Our energies are often stimulated by the necessity of supporting a being weaker than ourselves.

Anticipation is where our greatest fears lie.

Architecture is so intimately linked to the events of human life, whether public or private, that most observers can reconstruct nations or individuals in all the truth of their habits from the remains of their monuments or from their domestic relics.

Argument is greatly overvalued. Man is so made that he can resist sound argument and yet yields to a glance.

Attachment is a source of pain. We do not attach ourselves lastingly to anything that has not cost us care, labor or longing.

Beauty is the greatest of human powers. Any power without counterbalance or control becomes autocratic and leads to abuse and to folly. Despotism in a government is insanity... in woman, fantasy.

The Book is for recreation, entertainment, and instruction, sometimes agreeable, sometimes useful.