French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
What a handsome pair! Strange thoughts assail me as it becomes plain to me that these two, so perfectly matched in birth, wealth, and mental superiority, live entirely apart, and have nothing in common but their name. The show of unity is only for the world.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
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Letters of Two Brides
Silence is the only weapon by which such victims can conquer; it baffles the Cossack charges of envy, the savage skirmishings of suspicion; it does at times give victory, crushing and complete--for what is more complete than silence? it is absolute; it is one of the attributes of infinity.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
So thorough an old maid as Sylvie was certain to make good progress in the way of salvation.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
If many man fail to be masters in their own house this is not from lack of willingness, but of talent. As for those who are ready to undergo the toils of this terrible duel, it is quite true that they must needs possess great moral force.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
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
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
What a thing of fantasy a woman may become after dusk.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Ferragus
Nevertheless, there is in Paris a proportion of privileged beings to whom this excessive movement of industries, interests, affairs, arts, and gold is profitable. These beings are women. Although they also have a thousand secret causes which, here more than elsewhere, destroy their physiognomy, there are to be found in the feminine world little happy colonies, who live in Oriental fashion and can preserve their beauty; but these women rarely show themselves on foot in the streets, they lie hid like rare plants who only unfold their petals at certain hours, and constitute veritable exotic exceptions.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
A woman deprived of her free will can never have the credit of making a sacrifice.
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
One of the most important rules of the science of manners is an almost absolute silence in regard to yourself.
HONORE DE BALZAC
La Comédie Humaine
She who is really a wife, one in heart, flesh, and bone, must follow wherever he leads, in whom her life, her strength, her pride, and happiness are centered.
HONORE DE BALZAC
The Magic Skin
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
If we study Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we cannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment -- giving to that word its exact significance. Man does not create forces; he employs the only force that exists and which includes all others, namely Motion, the breath incomprehensible of the sovereign Maker of the universe.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
To speak of love is to make love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
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
Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they refrain from.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Le Siècle
In bringing God face to face with the Great Whole, we see that only two states are possible between them,—either God and Matter are contemporaneous, or God existed alone before Matter. Were Reason—the light that has guided the human race from the dawn of its existence—accumulated in one brain, even that mighty brain could not invent a third mode of being without suppressing both Matter and God.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
A husband never loses anything by appearing to believe in the fidelity of his wife, by preserving an air of patience and by keeping silence. Silence especially troubles a woman amazingly.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage