French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
The time always comes in which nations and women even the most stupid perceive that their innocence is being abused. The cleverest policy may for a long time proceed in a course of deceit; but it would be very happy for men if they could carry on their deceit to an infinite period; a vast amount of bloodshed would then be avoided, both in nations and in families.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Unfortunately her portrait will cure no one of the addiction to loving sweetly smiling angels with dreamy looks, innocent faces, and a strong-box for a heart.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
La cousine Bette
Let us leave hearts out of the question. Business is business, and business is not carried on with sentimentality like romances.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
Glory is a poison, good to be taken only in small doses.
HONORE DE BALZAC
attributed, Day's Collacon
In short, the terrible Raoul is grotesque. His movements are jerky, as if produced by imperfect machinery; his gait rejects all idea of order, and proceeds by spasmodic zig-zags and sudden stoppages, which knock him violently against peaceable citizens on the streets and boulevards of Paris. His conversation, full of caustic humor, of bitter satire, follows the gait of his body; suddenly it abandons its tone of vengeance and turns sweet, poetic, consoling, gentle, without apparent reason; he falls into inexplicable silences, or turns somersets of wit, which at times are somewhat wearying. In society, he is boldly awkward, and exhibits a contempt for conventions and a critical air about things respected which makes him unpleasant to narrow minds, and also to those who strive to preserve the doctrines of old-fashioned, gentlemanly politeness; but for all that there is a sort of lawless originality about him which women do not dislike. Besides, to them, he is often most amiably courteous; he seems to take pleasure in making them forget his personal singularities, and thus obtains a victory over antipathies which flatters either his vanity, his self-love, or his pride.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Mankind are not perfect, but one age is more or less hypocritical than another, and then simpletons say that its morality is high or low.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
The King stands for us all. To die for the King is to die for oneself, for one's family, which, like the kingdom, cannot die.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
Now, if a knowledge of mathematical laws gave us these four great musicians, what may we not attain to if we can discover the physical laws in virtue of which—grasp this clearly—we may collect, in larger or smaller quantities, according to the proportions we may require, an ethereal substance diffused in the atmosphere which is the medium alike of music and of light, of the phenomena of vegetation and of animal life! Do you follow me? Those new laws would arm the composer with new powers by supplying him with instruments superior of those now in use, and perhaps with a potency of harmony immense as compared with that now at his command. If every modified shade of sound answers to a force, that must be known to enable us to combine all these forces in accordance with their true laws.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
Men may weary by their constancy, but women never.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Before a woman gives herself entirely up to her lover, she ought to consider well what his love has to offer her. The gift of her esteem and confidence should necessarily precede that of her heart.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Each household gathered in its chimney-corner, in houses carefully closed from the outer air, and well supplied with biscuit, melted butter, dried fish, and other provisions laid in for the seven-months winter. The very smoke of these dwellings was hardly seen, half-hidden as they were beneath the snow, against the weight of which they were protected by long planks reaching from the roof and fastened at some distance to solid blocks on the ground, forming a covered way around each building.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Talent in love, as in every other art, consists in the power of forming a conception combined with the power of carrying it out.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
From the moment that your suspicions are aroused, you ought to be like a man mounted on a tricky horse, who always watches the ears of the beast, in fear of being thrown from the saddle.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
To be jealous is to exhibit, at once, the height of egotism, the error of amour-propre, the vexation of morbid vanity. Women rather encourage this ridiculous feeling, because by means of it they can obtain cashmere shawls, silver toilet sets, diamonds, which for them mark the high thermometer mark of their power. Moreover, unless you appear blinded by jealousy, your wife will not keep on her guard; for there is no pitfall which she does not distrust, excepting that which she makes for herself.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The winters are to fashionable women what a campaign once was to the soldiers of the Empire.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
La Fausse Maîtresse
Life -- is it anything more than a machine to which money imparts the motion?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
Those who spend too fast never grow rich.
HONORE DE BALZAC
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
Old maids who have never yielded in their habits of life or in their characters to other lives and other characters, as the fate of woman exacts, have, as a general thing, a mania for making others give way to them.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
Narrow natures expand by persecuting as much as others through beneficence; they prove their power over their fellows by cruel tyranny as others do by loving kindness; they simply go the way their temperaments drive them. Add to this the propulsion of self-interest and you may read the enigma of most social matters.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
Marriage is a matter concerning the whole of life, whilst love aims only at pleasure. On the other hand, marriage will remain when pleasures have vanished, and it is the source of interests far more precious than those of the man and woman entering on the alliance.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides