“Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.”

— Honoré de Balzac, The Wild Ass's Skin (1831), trans. Ellen Marriage, Part II: A Woman Without a Heart

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.”

“For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.”

“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”

“Isn't it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?”

“The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents.”

“One must learn to know oneself before knowing anything else.”

“And how do you teach thou shalt not kill? By killing.”