French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
Everywhere you find the man of thews and sinews who toils, and the lymphatic man who torments himself; and pleasures are everywhere the same, for when all sensations are exhausted, all that survives is Vanity—Vanity is the abiding substance of us, the I in us.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
None but fools and invalids can find pleasure in shuffling cards all evening long to find out whether they shall win a few pence at the end.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
As ideas are capable of infinite combination, it ought to be the same with pleasures.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Do not therefore allow yourself to be led astray by the specious good nature of such an institution as that of twin beds. It is the silliest, the most treacherous, the most dangerous in the world. Shame and anathema to him who conceived it!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The virtues we acquire, which develop slowly within us, are the invisible links that bind each one of our existences to the others--existences which the spirit alone remembers, for Matter has no memory for spiritual things.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
There are no two dramas alike: there are hideous sores, deadly chagrins, love scenes, misery that soon will lie under the ripples of the Seine, young men’s joys that lead to the scaffold, the laughter of despair, and sumptuous banquets. Yesterday it was a tragedy. A worthy soul of a father drowned himself because he could not support his family. To-morrow is a comedy.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
The woman who is happy in her affections does not go much into the world.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage