French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
Silliness has two ways of comporting itself; it talks, or is silent. Silent silliness can be borne.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
Man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Know this for certain—methods are always confounded with results; you will never succeed in separating the soul from the senses, spirit from matter.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
In the terrific tumult of raving passions, the holy Voice would have been unheard.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
If a man never grew old, I would never wish him to have a wife!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
I have already seen hundreds of men, young and middle-aged; not one has stirred the least feeling in me. No proof of admiration and devotion on their part, not even a sword drawn in my behalf, would have moved me. Love, dear, is the product of such rare conditions that it is quite possible to live a lifetime without coming across the being on whom nature has bestowed the power of making one's happiness. The thought is enough to make one shudder; for if this being is found too late, what then?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
He who is to win my heart, my dear, must be harsh and unbending with men, but gentle with women. His eagle eye must have power to quell with a single glance the least approach to ridicule. He will have a pitying smile for those who would jeer at sacred things, above all, at that poetry of the heart, without which life would be but a dreary commonplace. I have the greatest scorn for those who would rob us of the living fountain of religious beliefs, so rich in solace. His faith, therefore, should have the simplicity of a child, though united to the firm conviction of an intelligent man, who has examined the foundations of his creed. His fresh and original way of looking at things must be entirely free from affectation or desire to show off. His words will be few and fit, and his mind so richly stored, that he cannot possibly become a bore to himself any more than to others.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
For passion, be it observed, brings insight with it; it can give a sort of intelligence to simpletons, fools, and idiots, especially during youth.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Les Célibataires
Between two beings susceptible of love, the duration of passion is in proportion to the original resistance of the woman, or to the obstacles which the accidents of social life put in the way of your happiness.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
A mother's life, you see, is one long succession of dramas, now soft and tender, now terrible. Not an hour but has its joys and fears.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
You, you sybarites, canting bigots, vagabonds, hypocrites, sneaks, cudgellers, bucks, pilgrims, and such like, who are disguised as masqueraders to cheat the world! .... to heel, hounds; get out of the way! Away, pudden-heads! What, are you still there, in the devil's name?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
So thorough an old maid as Sylvie was certain to make good progress in the way of salvation.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of the Spiritual world.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Man himself is not a finished creation; if he were, God would not Be.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Love is the most melodious of all harmonies.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
In one of the finest houses of the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, at half-past eleven at night, two young women were sitting before the fireplace of a boudoir hung with blue velvet of that tender shade, with shimmering reflections, which French industry has lately learned to fabricate. Over the doors and windows were draped soft folds of blue cashmere, the tint of the hangings, the work of one of those upholsterers who have just missed being artists. A silver lamp studded with turquoise, and suspended by chains of beautiful workmanship, hung from the centre of the ceiling. The same system of decoration was followed in the smallest details, and even to the ceiling of fluted blue silk, with long bands of white cashmere falling at equal distances on the hangings, where they were caught back by ropes of pearl. A warm Belgian carpet, thick as turf, of a gray ground with blue posies, covered the floor. The furniture, of carved ebony, after a fine model of the old school, gave substance and richness to the rather too decorative quality, as a painter might call it, of the rest of the room. On either side of a large window, two etageres displayed a hundred precious trifles, flowers of mechanical art brought into bloom by the fire of thought. On a chimney-piece of slate-blue marble were figures in old Dresden, shepherds in bridal garb, with delicate bouquets in their hands, German fantasticalities surrounding a platinum clock, inlaid with arabesques. Above it sparkled the brilliant facets of a Venice mirror framed in ebony, with figures carved in relief, evidently obtained from some former royal residence. Two jardinieres were filled with the exotic product of a hot-house, pale, but divine flowers, the treasures of botany.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
If the role of an honest woman were nothing more than perilous ... I would admit that it would serve. But it is tiresome; and I have never met a virtuous woman who did not think about deceiving somebody.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
If the God of goodness and indulgence who hovers over the worlds does not make a second washing of the human race, it is doubtless because so little success attended the first.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
If love is the first of the passions, it is because it gratifies them all.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
If a man would have the right to make stepping-stones of all the heads which crowd a drawing-room, he must be the lover of some artistic woman of fashion.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage