French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
The bad points of others show out so strongly against the good that they usually strike our eyes before they wound us.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
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
When two human beings are united by pleasure, all social conventionalities are put aside. This situation conceals a reef on which many vessels are wrecked. A husband is lost, if he once forgets there is a modesty which is quite independent of coverings. Conjugal love ought never either to put on or to take away the bandage of its eyes, excepting at the due season.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Thoughts of adultery do not take possession of the heart of a married woman all at once, like a shot from a pistol.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Modeste Mignon
Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
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
In the terrific tumult of raving passions, the holy Voice would have been unheard.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
If men of imagination and good sense, like you, desert one camp only to join the other; if they cannot keep to the happy medium between two forms of extravagance, we shall always be exposed to the satire of the sophists, who deny all progress, who compare the genius of man to this tablecloth, which, being too short to cover the whole of Signor Giardini's table, decks one end at the expense of the other.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
Therefore Prayer, issuing from so many trials, is the consummation of all truths, all powers, all feelings.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
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
Feeble folk are as easily reassured as they are frightened.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
Now, among the petty miseries of human life the one for which the worthy priest felt the deepest aversion was the sudden sprinkling of his shoes, adorned with silver buckles, and the wetting of their soles.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
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 love is a child, passion is a man.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The dark glee, the savage ferocity aroused by the possession of a few water-white pebbles, set me shuddering. I was dumb with amazement.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
Happiness in marriage results in perfect union of soul between a married pair. Hence it follows that in order to be happy a man must feel himself bound by certain rules of honor and delicacy. After having enjoyed the benefit of the social law which consecrates the natural craving, he must obey also the secret laws of nature by which sentiments unfold themselves. If he stakes his happiness on being himself loved, he must himself love sincerely: nothing can resist a genuine passion.
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
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