Quotes from Honore de Balzac

Struck by the deep injustice, which is the end of these contests, in which everything is against the honest man, everything to the advantage of the rogue, he often summed up in favor of equity against law in such cases as bore on questions of what may be termed divination.

Wherefore he closed the door of the palace with awe, thinking as he did so that he should never set foot in it again. "Eve was right," he said to himself, as he went back under the stone arcading for some more money. "There is a difference between Paris prices and prices in L'Houmeau.

I got off one hundred and sixty-two Ternaux shawls at Orleans. I am sure I don't know what they will do with them, unless they return them to the backs of the sheep.

After all, the names of the principal characters will be quite as much disguised; for though in this history the chronicler would prefer to conceal the facts under a mass of contradictions, anachronisms, improbabilities, and absurdities, the truth will out in spite of him. You uproot a vine-stock, as you imagine, and the stem will send up lusty shoots after you have ploughed your vineyard over.

Napoleón no cenaba dos veces, ni podía tampoco tener más amantes de las que tiene cualquier estudiante de Medicina, no sé si me comprendes... Nuestra felicidad, amigo mío, tiene que caber siempre entre nuestros pies y nuestro occipucio, y, tanto si cuesta un millón al año como cien luises, la percepción intrínseca de ella es la misma en nuestro interior.

But in life there is only one love. So all discussions of feelings, written or oral, can be summed up by these two questions: Is it a passion? Is it love?

Les différences entre un soldat, un ouvrier, un administrateur, un avocat, un oisif, un savant, un homme d'état, un commerçant, un marin, un poète, un pauvre, un prêtre, sont, quoique plus difficiles à saisir, aussi considérables que celles qui distinguent le loup, le lion, l'âne, le corbeau, le requin, le veau marin, la brebis, etc. Il a donc existé, il existera donc de tout temps des Espèces Sociales comme il y a des Espèces Zoologiques

But stay, you shall not come from Havre to Paris to see Canalis without carrying something back with you. Warrior!" (Canalis had the form and action of an Homeric hero) "learn this from the poet: Every noble sentiment in man is a poem so exclusively individual that his nearest friend, his other self, cares nothing for it. It is a treasure which is his alone, it is —

My dear fellow, society only laughs at such a desperate conjugal predicament. Where it pities a lover, it regards a husband as ridiculously inept; it makes sport of those who cannot keep the woman they have secured under the canopy of the Church, and before the Maire's scarf of office. And I had to keep silence.

Les trois femmes, saisies de pitié, pleuraient: les larmes sont aussi contagieuses que peut l'être le rire.

Há, sem dúvida, pessoas que não têm o mesmo aspecto nem o mesmo valor, quando separadas das pessoas, das coisas, dos lugares que lhes servem de moldura.

It is somewhat remarkable that Balzac, dealing as he did with traits of character and the minute and daily circumstances of life, has never been accused of representing actual persons in the two or three thousand portraits which he painted of human nature.

Apropos of this, I asked my father one day whether it would be possible for me to see Mme. de Stael. My father, mother, and Alphonse all burst out laughing, and Alphonse said: "Where in the world has she sprung from?" To which my father replied: "What fools we are! She springs from the Carmelites." "My child, Mme. de Stael is dead," said my mother gently.

Women themselves are so happy, and so beautiful, when they're strong, that they naturally choose powerful men, even if that power's so enormous there's a real risk it could shatter them.

For women know how to say everything among themselves, and more of them are ruined by each other than corrupted by men.

What, child, your husband shuts himself into a room with naked women! And you are so simple as to believe that he draws them?

El secreto de las grandes fortunas sin causa aparente es un crimen olvidado, porque se ha cometido de una manera limpia. –Silencio,

Si las parisienses son tan a menudo falsas, ebrias de vanidad, personales y coquetas, es evidente, sin embargo, que cuando aman verdaderamente sacrifican mayor número de sentimientos a sus pasiones. Se elevan por encima de sus pequeñeces y llegan a ser sublimes.

Ce matin j'ignorais ce qu'était l'argent, vous me l'avez appris, ce n'est qu'un moyen, voilà tout.

If, in all the circumstances of life a man does not turn over and over both things and ideas in order to examine them thoroughly under their different aspects before taking action, that man is weak and incomplete and in danger of fatal failure.

This empty and deserted house is a vast enigma of which the answer is known to none.

Bei Liebschaften ist es ganz so wie in den Ehen. Der Betroffene erfährt immer alles zuletzt.

Manner is everything," an elegant translation of that judicial axiom: "Form over content.

Na província, não há escolha nem comparação a fazer: o hábito de ver as fisionomias dá-lhes uma beleza convencional. Transportada para Paris, uma mulher que passa por bonita no interior não desperta a menor atenção, porque não é bela senão pela aplicação do provérbio: Em terra de cegos, quem tem um olho é rei.