Honore de Balzac Quotes

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.

No storm lasts forever no matter what it is. Nature builds calmness within its storms. That's true in our own lives as well. When you reach the zenith of where you are going in your life, or in a relationship; the only place you can go is down or up. That's the nature of this universe; a cyclical thing. The seasons, the moon; everything has a cycle to it.

Don't you know that day dawns after night, showers displace drought, and spring and summer follow winter? Then, have hope! Hope forever, for God will not fail you!

It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, where there is true air.

If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick every day.

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature -- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

Despite what I had acchieved, I don't for a moment think I am any braver or better than anyone else. This is how I attempt to explain what gives me the stregnth to do what I do; when that thunderbolt of an idea first hit me and inspired me to row across oceans, it filled me with a sense of purpose so strong that it overcame my fears. Even when boredom, frustration, fatigue or despair threatened to overwhelm me, it was that powerful sense of purpose that kept me going.

But like of each thing that in season grows.

Everything has its cycle. I think it's appropriate for us to be ending now. But the beauty of storytelling, and the beauty of film and television is that it continues on.

I'll love you till the ocean Is folded and hung up to dry And the seven stars go squawking Like geese about the sky.

That's what History teaches us, I think, that life goes on, even though individuals die and whole civilizations crumble away: The simple things last; they are repeated over and over by each generation.

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

What came before has dissolved from me, lost like milk teeth. But I think, rather, that it has always been as it is, and there was never a beforethis nor will there be an afternow. I am accepting. This is not a thing to be solved, or conquered, or destroyed. It is. I am. We are. We conjugate together in darkness, plotting against each other, the Labyrinth to eat me and I to eat it, each to swallow the hard, black opium of the other. We hold orange petals beneath our tongues and seethe. It has always been so. It grinds against me and I bite into its skin.

Between being able to and actually doing something lies an ocean, and on its bottom rests all too often the wreck of willpower.

I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach. Before my Soul taught me, I doubted the value of my accomplishments until the passing days sent someone who would extol or disparage them. But now I know that trees blossom in the spring and give their fruits in the summer without any desire for accolades. And they scatter their leaves abroad in the fall and denude themselves in the winter without fear of reproof.

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean.

The whole history of life is a record of cycles.

Women are not children. We are not fragile little birds who can't cope with jokes, works of art, or controversial speakers.

Winds wanders, and dews drip earthward; Rains fall, suns rise and set; Earth whirls, and all but to prosper A poor little violet.

I tend to worry about each "emergency" or unforeseen complication on all my projects. But there are so many! All of life is unforeseen! So I am learning that is the cycle of life - everything is cyclical and temporary and to get ok with that someday could be my greatest achievement.

What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.

The tree does not die, it waits.

The spiritual warrior hides from nothing. We jump into the fire, we dive into the ocean. We become the sea.