# Quote — Honoré de Balzac, A Woman of Thirty

> Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshness of a lake. There is no character in women’s faces before the age of thirty.

- Author: [Honoré de Balzac](https://www.leafyquotes.com/honore-de-balzac.md)
- Book: [A Woman of Thirty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/honore-de-balzac/a-woman-of-thirty.md)
- Original (fr): Rien n'est-il si discret qu'un jeune visage, parce que rien n'est plus immobile. La figure d'une jeune femme a le calme, le poli, la fraîcheur de la surface d'un lac. La physionomie des femmes ne commence qu'à trente ans.
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Honor%C3%A9_de_Balzac#A_Woman_of_Thirty_(1842)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/honore-de-balzac/a-woman-of-thirty/nothing-is-so-discreet

## More from this book

> The sanctity of womanhood is incompatible with social liberty and social claims; and for a woman emancipation means corruption.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/honore-de-balzac/a-woman-of-thirty/the-sanctity-of-womanhood.md)

> But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/honore-de-balzac/a-woman-of-thirty/but-reason-always.md)

> A girl's coquetry is of the simplest, she thinks that all is said when the veil is laid aside; a woman's coquetry is endless, she shrouds herself in veil after veil, she satisfies every demand of man's vanity, the novice responds but to one.
>
> And there are terrors, fears, and hesitations — trouble and storm in the love of a woman of thirty years, never to be found in a young girl's love. At thirty years a woman asks her lover to give her back the esteem she has forfeited for his sake; she lives only for him, her thoughts are full of his future, he must have a great career, she bids him make it glorious; she can obey, entreat, command, humble herself, or rise in pride; times without number she brings comfort when a young girl can only make moan.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/honore-de-balzac/a-woman-of-thirty/a-girls-coquetry.md)