French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
Seen from a distance, Raoul Nathan was a very fine meteor. Fashion accepted his ways and his appearance. His borrowed republicanism gave him, for the time being, that Jansenist harshness assumed by the defenders of the popular cause, while they inwardly scoff at it--a quality not without charm in the eyes of women.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
My further advice on your relations to women is based upon that other motto of chivalry, "Serve all, love one."
HONORE DE BALZAC
The Lily of the Valley
Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster that devours everything: familiarity.
HONORé DE BALZAC
attributed, And I Quote
In the dark recesses of a porter’s lodge, beneath the tiles of an attic roof, many a poor girl dreams, on returning from the theatre, of pearls and diamonds, gold-embroidered gowns and sumptuous girdles; she fancies herself adored, applauded, courted; but little she knows of that treadmill life, in which the actress is forced to rehearsals under pain of fines, to the reading of new pieces, to the constant study of new roles.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
In Paris no sentiment can withstand the drift of things, and their current compels a struggle in which the passions are relaxed: there love is a desire, and hatred a whim; there’s no true kinsman but the thousand-franc note, no better friend than the pawnbroker.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
By remaining unmarried, a creature of the female sex becomes void of meaning; selfish and cold, she creates repulsion.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
A man ought not to marry without having studied anatomy, and dissected at least one woman.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
A husband and wife found themselves in love with each other for the first time after twenty-seven years of marriage.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Women are always true, even in the midst of their greatest falsities, because they are always influenced by some natural feeling.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
What an admirable maneuver it would be to make a wife dance, and to feed her on vegetables!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Man is the minister of Nature, and society engrafts itself upon her.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
It is so natural, socially speaking, to laugh at the failings of others that we ought to forgive the ridicule our own absurdities excite, and be annoyed only by calumny.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
His life flowed soundless as the sands of an hour-glass.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
Wisdom is the understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by Love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Time is their tyrant: it fails them, it escapes them; they can neither expand it nor cut it short.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
The married woman who is the most chaste may be also the most voluptuous.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Love consists almost always in conversation. There are few things inexhaustible in a lover: goodness, gracefulness and delicacy. To feel everything, to divine everything, to anticipate everything; to reproach without bringing affliction upon a tender heart; to make a present without pride; to double the value of a certain action by the way in which it is done; to flatter rather by actions than by words; to make oneself understood rather than to produce a vivid impression; to touch without striking; to make a look and the sound of the voice produce the effect of a caress; never to produce embarrassment; to amuse without offending good taste; always to touch the heart; to speak to the soul—this is all that women ask. They will abandon all the delights of all the nights of Messalina, if only they may live with a being who will yield them those caresses of the soul, for which they are so eager, and which cost nothing to men if only they have a little consideration.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
A man may be put to death by a thought.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Your young wife will never take a lover, as we have elsewhere said, without making serious reflections. As soon as the honeymoon wanes, you will find that you have aroused in her a sentiment of pleasure which you have not satisfied; you have opened to her the book of life; and she has derived an excellent idea from the prosaic dullness which distinguishes your complacent love, of the poetry which is the natural result when souls and pleasures are in accord. Like a timid bird, just startled by the report of a gun which has ceased, she puts her head out of her nest, looks round her, and sees the world; and knowing the word of a charade which you have played, she feels instinctively the void which exists in your languishing passion. She divines that it is only with a lover that she can regain the delightful exercise of her free will in love. You have dried the green wood in preparation for a fire.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage