26 quotes found
“If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.”
“Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves!”
“Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?”
“Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.”
“We flew back home like swallows. 'Is it happiness that makes us so light?' Agathe asked.”
“Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own.”
“A letter is a soul, so faithful an echo of the speaking voice that to the sensitive it is among the richest treasures of love.”
“If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way down.”
“However gross a man may be, the minute he expresses a strong and genuine affection, some inner secretion alters his features, animates his gestures, and colors his voice. The stupidest man will oft...”
“Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.”
“Where some one else's welfare is concerned, a young girl becomes as ingenious as a thief. Guileless where she herself is in question, and full of foresight for me,--she is like a heavenly angel for...”
“No one ought even to desert a woman after throwing her a heap of gold in her distress! He ought to love her forever! You are young, only twenty-one, and kind and upright and fine. You'll ask me how...”
“The viscountess had raised the forefinger of her right hand and made a pretty gesture toward a stool at her feet. There was such intense tyrannical passion in the gesture that the marquis relinquis...”
“It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide.”
“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...”
“Was she acting entirely consciously? No: women are always sincere, even in the midst of their most shocking duplicities, because it is always some natural emotion which dominates them. Perhaps, hav...”
“How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene.'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come ...”
“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?”
“Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.”
“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.”
“Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in getting them clean again, and the...”
“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.”
