French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of the Spiritual world.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
When a human soul draws its first furrow straight, the rest will follow surely.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one suffering endured, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are forever changed.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Silliness has two ways of comporting itself; it talks, or is silent. Silent silliness can be borne.
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 virtue of women is perhaps a question of temperament.
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
An honest woman is necessarily a married woman.
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
There are those whose character is like a chestnut without a kernel.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
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
Love is the poetry of the senses. It has the destiny of all that which is great in man and of all that which proceeds from his thought. Either it is sublime, or it is not. When once it exists, it exists forever and goes on always increasing. This is the love which the ancients made the child of heaven and earth.
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
If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Père Goriot
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
In the terrific tumult of raving passions, the holy Voice would have been unheard.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
All human power is a compound of time and patience.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Eugénie Grandet
There is no good fete without a morrow.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
In the matter of repartees literary celebrities are often not as quick as women.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve