French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
The dark glee, the savage ferocity aroused by the possession of a few water-white pebbles, set me shuddering. I was dumb with amazement.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
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Gobseck
One of the most important rules of the science of manners is an almost absolute silence in regard to yourself.
HONORE DE BALZAC
La Comédie Humaine
Yesterday, at the Italian Opera, I could feel some one was looking at me; my eyes were drawn, as by a magnet, to two wells of fire, gleaming like carbuncles in a dim corner of the orchestra. Henarez never moved his eyes from me. The wretch had discovered the one spot from which he could see me—and there he was. I don't know what he may be as a politician, but for love he has a genius.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
To write a letter, and to have it posted; to get an answer, to read it and burn it; there we have correspondence stated in the simplest terms.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Nature, that good and tender parent, has set round about the mother of a family the most reliable and the most sagacious of spies, the most truthful and at the same time the most discreet in the world. They are silent and yet they speak, they see everything and appear to see nothing.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
If many man fail to be masters in their own house this is not from lack of willingness, but of talent. As for those who are ready to undergo the toils of this terrible duel, it is quite true that they must needs possess great moral force.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The study of thought’s mysteries, the discovery of those organs which belong to the human soul, the geometry of its forces, the phenomena of its active power, the appreciation of the faculty by which we seem to have an independent power of bodily movement, so as to transport ourselves whither we will and to see without the aid of bodily organs,—in a word the laws of thought’s dynamic and those of its physical influence,—these things will fall to the lot of the next century, as their portion in the treasury of human sciences. And perhaps we, of the present time, are merely occupied in quarrying the enormous blocks which later on some mighty genius will employ in the building of a glorious edifice.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Your wife ought to drink water, lightly tinged with a Burgundy wine agreeable to her taste, but destitute of any tonic properties; every other kind of wine would be bad for her. Never allow her to drink water alone; if you do, you are lost...
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
If you have desired your object only for one day, your love perhaps will not last more than three nights.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
So thorough an old maid as Sylvie was certain to make good progress in the way of salvation.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
Wisdom is the understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by Love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
The artisan, the man of the proletariat, who uses his hands, his tongue, his back, his right arm, his five fingers, to live—well, this very man, who should be the first to economize his vital principle, outruns his strength, yokes his wife to some machine, wears out his child, and ties him to the wheel.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts, and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also have a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy their physiognomy, there are to be found in the feminine world little happy colonies, who live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their beauty; but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets, they lie hid like rare plants who only unfold their petals at certain hours, and constitute veritable exotic exceptions.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Between persons who are perpetually in each other's company dislike or love increases daily; every moment brings reasons to love or hate each other more and more.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
Feeble folk are as easily reassured as they are frightened.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
In the terrific tumult of raving passions, the holy Voice would have been unheard.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
What a handsome pair! Strange thoughts assail me as it becomes plain to me that these two, so perfectly matched in birth, wealth, and mental superiority, live entirely apart, and have nothing in common but their name. The show of unity is only for the world.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Modeste Mignon
Love is the poetry of the senses. It has the destiny of all that which is great in man and of all that which proceeds from his thought. Either it is sublime, or it is not. When once it exists, it exists forever and goes on always increasing. This is the love which the ancients made the child of heaven and earth.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage