HONORÉ DE BALZAC QUOTES XVI

French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)


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Everyday life cannot be cast in heroic mould. No doubt there seems, at any rate at first sight, no room left in this scheme of life for that longing after the infinite which expands the mind and soul. But what is there to prevent me from launching on that boundless sea our familiar craft?

HONORÉ DE BALZAC
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Letters of Two Brides


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Tags: life


If a man never grew old, I would never wish him to have a wife!

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage


There are, without counting grocers and drapers, so many people who, to kill time, occupy themselves in seeking for the hidden motives which direct women's actions, that it is a work of charity to classify by titles and in chapters all the private circumstances of marriage; a good index will enable them to put their finger on the motions of their wives' hearts, just as logarithmic tables give them the product of any two numbers.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: charity


Thought alone holds the tradition of the bygone life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: genius


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.

HONORE DE BALZAC

A Woman of Thirty

Tags: women


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

Tags: love


Man himself is not a finished creation; if he were, God would not Be.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: God


Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

HONORE DE BALZAC

attributed, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources

Tags: misfortune


Passions are as mean as they are cruel.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve


To follow the impulse of love and feeling is the secret law of every woman's heart.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: law


We find in the unexplorable nature of the Spiritual World certain beings armed with these wondrous faculties, comparable only to the terrible power of certain gases in the physical world, beings who combine with other beings, penetrate them as active agents, and produce upon them witchcrafts, charms, against which these helpless slaves are wholly defenseless; they are, in fact, enchanted, brought under subjection, reduced to a condition of dreadful vassalage. Such mysterious beings overpower others with the scepter and the glory of a superior nature,—acting upon them at times like the torpedo which electrifies or paralyzes the fisherman, at other times like a dose of phosphorous which stimulates life and accelerates its propulsion; or again, like opium, which puts to sleep corporeal nature, disengages the spirit from every bond, enables it to float above the world and shows this earth to the spiritual eye as through a prism, extracting from it the food most needed.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: nature


White hair often covers the head, but the heart that holds it is ever young.

HONORE DE BALZAC

The Lily of the Valley

Tags: old age


A society of atheists would immediately invent a religion.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Le catechisme social

Tags: atheism


A wife is to her husband just what her husband has made her.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage


Alas! we cannot understand each other on any point. We are separated by an abyss. You are on the side of darkness, while I—I live in the light, the true Light!

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: light


Even thrones rise and fall in France with fearful rapidity. Fifteen years have wreaked their will on a great empire, a monarchy, and a revolution. No one can now dare to count upon the future.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: France


Happiness in marriage results in perfect union of soul between a married pair. Hence it follows that in order to be happy a man must feel himself bound by certain rules of honor and delicacy. After having enjoyed the benefit of the social law which consecrates the natural craving, he must obey also the secret laws of nature by which sentiments unfold themselves. If he stakes his happiness on being himself loved, he must himself love sincerely: nothing can resist a genuine passion.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: happiness


I longed for a companion to the kingdom of Light; I wished to show you that morsel of mud, I find you bound to it.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita


I went to bed sorrowful, and I still suffer from the shock produced by this first collision of my frank, joyous nature with the harsh laws of society. Already the highway hedges are flecked with my white wool!

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: nature


If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way down.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot