French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
The man whose action habitually bears the stamp of his mind is a genius, but the greatest genius is not always equal to himself, or he would cease to be human.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
A fact worthy of remark is the aversion shown to such conversations by women who are enjoying some illicit happiness; they maintain before the eyes of the world a reserved, prudish, and even timid countenance; they seem to ask silence on the subject, or some condonation of their pleasure from society. When, on the contrary, a woman talks freely of such catastrophes, and seems to take pleasure in doing so, allowing herself to explain the emotions that justify the guilty parties, we may be sure that she herself is at the crossways of indecision, and does not know what road she might take.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
The countess approached the divan in the centre of the room, where Raoul was perorating. She stood there with her arm in that of Madame Octave de Camp, an excellent woman, who kept the secret of the involuntary trembling by which these violent emotions betrayed themselves. Though the eyes of a captivated woman are apt to shed wonderful sweetness, Raoul was too occupied at that moment in letting off fireworks, too absorbed in his epigrams going up like rockets (in the midst of which were flaming portraits drawn in lines of fire) to notice the naïve admiration of one little Eve concealed in a group of women. Marie’s curiosity—like that which would undoubtedly precipitate all Paris into the Jardin des Plantes to see a unicorn, if such an animal could be found in those mountains of the moon, still virgin of the tread of Europeans—intoxicates a secondary mind as much as it saddens great ones; but Raoul was enchanted by it; although he was then too anxious to secure all women to care very much for one alone.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Passions are as mean as they are cruel.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Women will not suffer their idol to step down from his pedestal. They do not forgive the slightest pettiness in a god.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
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
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
Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
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
Conviction brings a silent, indefinable beauty into faces made of the commonest human clay; the devout worshiper at any shrine reflects something of its golden glow, even as the glory of a noble love shines like a sort of light from a woman's face.
HONORE DE BALZAC
There are no principles, only events; there are no laws, only circumstances: a superior man espouses events and circumstances the better to influence them. If fixed principles and laws really existed, countries wouldn't change them as often as we change shirts. One man can't be expected to show more sense than an entire nation.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Father Goriot
Men are like that, they can resist sound argument, yet yield to a glance.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
"Le Contrat de mariage", Scènes de la vie privée
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
Literature revolves round seven situations; music expresses everything with seven notes; painting employs but seven colors; like these three arts, love perhaps founds itself on seven principles, but we leave this investigation for the next century to carry out.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
If love is a child, passion is a man.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Feeble folk are as easily reassured as they are frightened.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
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
Dost thou not see the nature of my love, a love without self-interest; a sentiment full of thee, thee only; a love which follows thee into the future to light that future for thee—for it is the one True Light. Canst thou now conceive with what ardor I would have thee leave this life which weighs thee down, and behold thee nearer than thou art to that world where Love is never-failing? Can it be aught but suffering to love for one life only? Hast thou not felt a thirst for the eternal love? Dost thou not feel the bliss to which a creature rises when, with twin-soul, it loves the Being who betrays not love, Him before whom we kneel in adoration?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
The higher thy flight the less canst thou see the abysses. There are none in heaven.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
So thorough an old maid as Sylvie was certain to make good progress in the way of salvation.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette