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
A grocer is attracted to his business by a magnetic force as great as the repulsion which renders it odious to artists.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the allure of mundane professions can be as strong as the disdain they may evoke in more artistic minds.
Balzac reflects on the contrasting perceptions of work between those who find satisfaction in commerce and those who are drawn to creative pursuits. The reference to 'magnetic force' implies that there is a compelling attraction for some individuals towards practical work, while others, like artists, may feel a strong aversion to it, highlighting the dichotomy in human interests and values.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about career choices in a motivational seminar.
One can imagine the look the two lovers exchanged; it was like a flame, for virtuous lovers have not a shred of hypocrisy.
Loyalty in time of need is possibly one of the noblest of victories a courtier can win over himself.
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?
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?
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.
Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.
Whoever be the instruments of any good to us, of whatever sort, we must look above them, and eye the hand and counsel of God in it, which is the first spring, and be duly thankful to God for it. And whatever evil of crosses or afflictions befalls us, we must look above the instruments of it to God.
Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.
When a Benefit is wrongly conferred, the author of the Benefit may often be said to injure.
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