Père Goriot Quotes

Do you know how a man makes his way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful corruption. You must either cut your way through these masses of men like a cannon ball, or steal among them like a plague.

There is a cure for temptation. What? Yielding to it.

Women are in a manner true to themselves even through their grossest deceit, because their actions are prompted by a natural impulse.

Who shall say which is more ghastly, the sight of the bleached skulls or of dried-up human hearts?

The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.[Also known as: Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.]

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 therein lies the whole morality of our epoch.

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.

Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt.

Mankind are not perfect, but one age is more or less hypocritical than another, and then simpletons say that its morality is high or low.

Love is a religion, and his cult must in the nature of things be more costly than those of all other deities; Love the Spoiler stays for a moment, and then passes on; like the urchin of the streets, his course may be traced by the ravages that he has made.

If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.