HONORÉ DE BALZAC QUOTES XVIII

French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)

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

Tags: soul


Man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: despair


Moreover, all lovers have the art of arranging a special code of signals, whose arbitrary import it is difficult to understand. At a ball, a flower placed in some odd way in the hair; at the theatre, a pocket handkerchief unfolded on the front of the box; rubbing the nose, wearing a belt of a particular color, putting the hat on one side, wearing one dress oftener than another, singing a certain song in a concert or touching certain notes on the piano; fixing the eyes on a point agreed; everything, in fact, from the hurdy-gurdy which passes your windows and goes away if you open the shutter, to the newspaper announcement of a horse for sale—all may be reckoned as correspondence.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: art


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

Tags: life


Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

HONORE DE BALZAC

attributed, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources

Tags: misfortune


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

Tags: suffering


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

Tags: envy


The countess had longed for emotions, and now she had them,—terrible, cruel, and yet most precious. She lived a deeper life in pain than in pleasure.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: life


The eyes of the good vicar never reached the optical range which enables men of the world to see and evade their neighbors' rough points. Before he could be brought to perceive the faults of his landlady he was forced to undergo the warning which Nature gives to all her creatures--pain.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Vicar of Tours

Tags: faults


The higher thy flight the less canst thou see the abysses. There are none in heaven.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: Heaven


The virtue of women is perhaps a question of temperament.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: question


Though the comforts which all creatures desire, and for which he had so often longed, thus fell to his share, the Abbe Birotteau, like the rest of the world, found it difficult, even for a priest, to live without something to hanker for.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Vicar of Tours

Tags: desire


Thought alone holds the tradition of the bygone life. The endless legacy of the past to the present is the secret source of human genius.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: genius


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

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: birth


Wit is thought to be a quality rare in comedians. It is so natural to suppose that persons who spend their lives in showing things on the outside have nothing within.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: quality


A lover has all the good points and all the bad points which are lacking in a husband.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage


Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: courtesy


Here, the hearers receiving a musical impression do not work it out in themselves, as religion bids us work out the texts of Scripture in prayer. Hence it is very difficult to make them understand that there is in nature an eternal melody, exquisitely sweet, a perfect harmony, disturbed only by revolutions independent of the divine will, as passions are uncontrolled by the will of men.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Gambara

Tags: work


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

Tags: admiration


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

Tags: fashion