French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
In the life of man there are no two moments of pleasure exactly alike, any more than there are two leaves of identical shape upon the same tree.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The music of the Opera enchants me; and whilst my soul is plunged in divine pleasure, I am the centre of admiration and the focus of all the opera-glasses. But a single glance will make the boldest youth drop his eyes.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
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
In the matter of repartees literary celebrities are often not as quick as women.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
"Women," she said, with tears in her eyes, "can only love; men act; they have a thousand ways in which they are bound to act. But we can only think, and pray, and worship."
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Thus your invisible moral universe and your visible physical universe are one and the same matter. We will not separate properties from substances, nor objects from effects. All that exists, all that presses upon us and overwhelms us from above or from below, before us or in us, all that which our eyes and our minds perceive, all these named and unnamed things compose—in order to fit the problem of Creation to the measure of your logic—a block of finite Matter; but were it infinite, God would still not be its master.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
All ends in God; and many are the ways to find Him by walking straight before us.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
A lover has all the good points and all the bad points which are lacking in a husband.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Anything may be expected and anything may be supposed of a woman who is in love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
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
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
Now headache is an affection which affords infinite resources to a woman. This malady, which is the easiest of all to feign, for it is destitute of any apparent symptom, merely obliges her to say: "I have a headache." A woman trifles with you and there is no one in the world who can contradict her skull.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Unite a fine intelligence with a dwarfed intelligence and you precipitate a disaster; for it is necessary that equilibrium be preserved in everything.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
To speak of love is to make love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?
HONORE DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
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
It is extremely rare for young men, when driven to suicide, to attempt it a second time if the first fails. When it doesn't cure life, it cures all desire for voluntary death.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
In married life, the moment when two hearts come to understand each other is sudden as a flash of lightning, and never returns, when once it is passed.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Where poverty ceases, avarice begins.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Lost Illusions
Tone is light in another shape. In music, instruments perform the functions of the colors employed in painting.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara