One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.
Honore De BalzacRead
Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the deeper emotional and existential struggles of life, comparing the sorrow of lost emotions to the starkness of death.
In this quote, Honore De Balzac presents a profound commentary on human existence by contrasting the imagery of 'withered hearts'—which symbolize emotional desolation and loss of love—with 'empty skulls,' representing death and the absence of life. The rhetorical question invites the reader to ponder the relative severity of emotional suffering versus physical death, suggesting that the pain of unfulfilled desires and lost connections can be as haunting as the finality of death itself.
Themes
Emotional PainDeathExistentialismSorrowLossHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
During a philosophical discussion on the meaning of life, you could use this quote to illustrate the depth of emotional suffering.
More from Honore De Balzac
All quotes →Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.
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Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
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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 often, under the stress of passion, achieve heights of eloquence, in thought if not in language, and seem to move in some luminous sphere. Goriot's voice and gesture had at this moment the power of communication that characterizes the great actor. Are not our finer feelings the poems of the human will?
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Love is a religion, and its rituals cost more than those of other religions. It goes by quickly and, like a street urchin, it likes to mark its passage by a trail of devastation.
Honore De BalzacRead
Imaginative, sanguine men will never recognize that in negotiations the most dangerous moment of all is when everything is moving according to their wishes.
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