French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
In these times, liberty is no longer proscribed; it is going its rounds again.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
When Marie-Angelique left the maternal purgatory, she rose at once into the conjugal paradise prepared for her by Felix, rue du Rocher, in a house where all things were redolent of aristocracy, but where the varnish of society did not impede the ease and "laisser-aller" which young and loving hearts desire so much. From the start, Marie-Angelique tasted all the sweets of material life to the very utmost. For two years her husband made himself, as it were, her purveyor. He explained to her, by degrees, and with great art, the things of life; he initiated her slowly into the mysteries of the highest society; he taught her the genealogies of noble families; he showed her the world; he guided her taste in dress; he trained her to converse; he took her from theatre to theatre, and made her study literature and current history. This education he accomplished with all the care of a lover, father, master, and husband; but he did it soberly and discreetly; he managed both enjoyments and instructions in such a manner as not to destroy the value of her religious ideas. In short, he carried out his enterprise with the wisdom of a great master. At the end of four years, he had the happiness of having formed in the Comtesse de Vandenesse one of the most lovable and remarkable young women of our day.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Like an eagle darting on his prey, he took her utterly to him, set her on his knees, and felt with an indescribable intoxication the voluptuous pressure of this girl, whose richly developed beauties softly enveloped him.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
An honest woman is one whom her lover fears to compromise.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Alas! if your wife has not yet kissed the apple of the Serpent, the Serpent stands before her.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
What an admirable maneuver it would be to make a wife dance, and to feed her on vegetables!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
It is always assumed by the empty-headed, who chatter about themselves for want of something better, that people who do not discuss their affairs openly must have something to hide.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
Nature has favored our sex in giving us a choice between love and motherhood. I have made mine. My children shall be my gods, and this spot of earth my Eldorado.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
Love, dear, is in my eyes the first principle of all the virtues, conformed to the divine likeness. Like all other first principles, it is not a matter of arithmetic; it is the Infinite in us.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
A man, like many another, of complex nature, he was easily fascinated by the comfort of luxury, without which he could hardly have lived; and, in the same way, he clung to the social distinctions which his principles contemned. Thus his theories as an artist, a thinker, and a poet were in frequent antagonism with his tastes, his feelings, and his habits as a man of rank and wealth; but he comforted himself for his inconsistencies by recognizing them in many Parisians, like himself liberal by policy and aristocrats by nature.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
Seen from a distance, Raoul Nathan was a very fine meteor. Fashion accepted his ways and his appearance. His borrowed republicanism gave him, for the time being, that Jansenist harshness assumed by the defenders of the popular cause, while they inwardly scoff at it--a quality not without charm in the eyes of women.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
When she plays, an actress can live no life of her own; she can neither dress, nor eat, nor talk.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Though all things in society as well as in the universe are said to have a purpose, there do exist here below certain beings whose purpose and utility seem inexplicable.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
By remaining unmarried, a creature of the female sex becomes void of meaning; selfish and cold, she creates repulsion.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
To beat a retreat with the honors of war has always been the triumph of the ablest generals.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
Time is their tyrant: it fails them, it escapes them; they can neither expand it nor cut it short.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Wisdom is the understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by Love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Oh! after ten years of marriage to find under his roof, and to see all the time, a young girl of from sixteen to eighteen, fresh, dressed with taste, the treasures of whose beauty seem to breathe defiance, whose frank bearing is irresistibly attractive, whose downcast eyes seem to fear you, whose timid glance tempts you, and for whom the conjugal bed has no secrets, for she is at once a virgin and an experienced woman! How can a man remain cold, like St. Anthony, before such powerful sorcery, and have the courage to remain faithful to the good principles represented by a scornful wife, whose face is always stern, whose manners are always snappish, and who frequently refuses to be caressed? What husband is stoical enough to resist such fires, such frosts? There, where you see a new harvest of pleasure, the young innocent sees an income, and your wife her liberty. It is a little family compact, which is signed in the interest of good will.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The average age at which a man marries is thirty years; the average age at which his passions, his most violent desires for genesial delight are developed, is twenty years. Now during the ten fairest years of his life, during the green season in which his beauty, his youth and his wit make him more dangerous to husbands than at any other epoch of his life, his finds himself without any means of satisfying legitimately that irresistible craving for love which burns in his whole nature. During this time, representing the sixth part of human life, we are obliged to admit that the sixth part or less of our total male population and the sixth part which is the most vigorous is placed in a position which is perpetually exhausting for them, and dangerous for society.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
How hungry one's heart gets!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides