Quotes from Honore de Balzac

I begin to perceive," said La Briere, smiling, "that there is something poisonous in glory, as there is in certain dazzling flowers.

Men are like books, often understood and appreciated too late.

Mademoiselle de Watteville, to whom her enormous prospective fortune at that time lent considerable importance, had been brought up exclusively within the precincts of the Hotel de Rupt — which her mother rarely quitted, so devoted was she to her dear Archbishop — and severely repressed by an exclusively religious education, and by her mother's despotism, which held her rigidly to principles. Rosalie knew absolutely nothing.

How inexplicable Parisian women are!" exclaimed Thaddeus. "When they are loved to madness they want to be loved reasonably: and when they are loved reasonably they reproach a man for not loving them at all.

Ne pas écouter est non seulement un manque de politesse, mais encore une marque de mépris. Rien ne rapporte plus dans le commerce du monde que l'aumône de l'attention. À bon entendeur salut !

You are going to appear to be something that you are not, and your whole life and success depends upon this? You are about to see a society into which you cannot enter without rushing into expense that you cannot afford, without losing precious time that is needed for your studies. Ah! my dear Eugene, believe your mother, crooked ways cannot lead to great ends.

The fireplace is a very interesting feature in the room. It is easy to see that life in the last century centered largely round the hearth, where great events were enacted. The copper gilt grate is a marvel of workmanship, and the mantelpiece is most delicately finished; the fire-irons are beautifully chased; the bellows are a perfect gem.

My sweet, it is this terrible Paris — there's my excuse. What, pray, is yours? Oh! what a whirlpool is society! Didn't I tell you once that in Paris one must be as the Parisians? Society there drives out all sentiment; it lays en embargo on your time; and unless you are very careful, soon eats away your heart altogether.

What is life, my dear fellow, if you let a woman be the whole of it? A boat you can't command,

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

Children, dear and loving children, can alone console a woman for the loss of her beauty.

Paris, like every pretty woman, is subject to inexplicable whims of beauty and ugliness.

Even beauty cannot always palliate eccentricity.

In a world of hunchbacks, a fine figure becomes a monstrosity.

Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise again from ruin.

The joy of those noisy and splendid groups was visible; that of Ginevra and Luigi was buried in their bosom. On one side the tumult of common pleasure, on the other, the delicate silence of happy souls, — earth and heaven!

Es fehlt uns eben leider nie an Geld für unsere Launen. Wir markten nur um den Preis für nützliche oder notwendige Dinge.

Monsieur Octave de Camps, he said, having wasted his means on a certain Madame Firmiani, was now reduced to teaching mathematics for a living, while awaiting his uncle's death, not daring to let him know of his dissipations.

Unfortunately, I am known only to painters. Schinner backs me; and he has got me some work at the Chateau de Presles, where I am going in October to do some arabesques, panels, and other decorations, for which the Comte de Serizy, no doubt, will pay well.

As for music, it was his profession, and where will you find the man who is in love with his means of earning a livelihood? For it is with a profession as with marriage: in the long length you are sensible of nothing but the drawbacks.

When I was two-and-twenty, and had taken my degree in law, my old uncle, the Abbe Loraux, then seventy-two years old, felt it necessary to provide me with a protector, and to start me in some career. This excellent man, if not indeed a saint, regarded each year of his life as a fresh gift from God.

Doing his own benefactions without hope of a celestial harvest, he thought himself on a nobler plane than religious men whom he always accused for making, as he called it, terms with God.

Swathing in this way their natural charms, this costume gave them a vague resemblance to Egyptian hermae; though from these blocks of muslin rose enchanting little heads of tender melancholy. They felt themselves the objects of pity, and inwardly resented it. What woman, however innocent, does not desire to excite envy?

Les parvenus sont comme les singes, desquels ils ont l'adresse: on les voit en hauteur, on admire leur agilité pendant Tescalade; mais, arrivés à la cime, on n'aperçoit plus que leurs côtés honteux.