“Discretion is the best form of calculation.”

— Honoré de Balzac, The Girl with Golden Eyes (1835), trans. Ellen Marriage, ch. III

About Honoré de Balzac

1799 – 1850

French novelist, author of "La Comédie humaine".

“Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster which devours everything, that is, familiarity.”

“All human power is a compound of time and patience.”

“Equality may be a right, but no power on earth can convert it into fact.”

“Let whatever appears to be the best be to you an inviolable law.”

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

“All that glisters is not gold.”

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

“And one man in his time plays many parts.”

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”