Quotes from Honore de Balzac

Nuestras ridiculeces son causadas en gran medida por un bello sentimiento, una virtud o unas facultades llevadas al extremo. El orgullo que no se refina con el trato del gran mundo se transforma en rigidez que se apega a simples pequeñeces en vez de crecer en un círculo de sentimientos elevados.

Yes, for metals as for human beings, for plants as for men, life begins in an imperceptible embryo which develops itself.

I went to bed sorrowful, and I still suffer from the shock produced by this first collision of my frank, joyous nature with the harsh laws of society.

Sometimes the players would sit for half an hour, their cards held fan-shape on their stomachs, engaged in talking. If, as a result of these inattentions, a counter was missing from the basket, every one eagerly declared that he or she had put in their proper number. Usually the chevalier made up the deficiency, being accused by the rest of thinking so much of his buzzing ears, his chilly chest, and other symptoms of invalidism that he must have forgotten his stake.

Little minds find gratification for their feelings, benevolent or otherwise, by a constant exercise of petty ingenuity.

Existe esa clase de goces que solamente pueden saborearse entre dos, de poeta a poeta, de corazón a corazón.

Balzac's father Bernard-François Balssa, was one of eleven children from a poor family in Tarn, in the south of France. The author's mother, Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier, came from a family of haberdashers in Paris. Her family's wealth was a considerable factor in the match. She was eighteen at the time of the wedding and Bernard-François fifty.

Madame de Bargeton iba a encontrarse en esa tesitura en la que se han encontrado multitud de mujeres que se han perdido solo después de haber sido injustamente acusadas.

And I went on to deliver such a diatribe while comparing botany and the world, that we ended miles away from the dividing wall, and the Countess must have supposed me to be a wretched and wounded sufferer worthy of her pity. However, at the end of half an hour my neighbor naturally brought me back to the point; for women, when they are not in love, have all the cold blood of an experienced attorney.

That cursed ball! All the world thinks I am worth millions. Yet Lourdois had a look that was not natural; there's a snake in the grass somewhere.

More ideas surged through her head in one quarter of an hour than she had ever had since she came into the world. "Mamma," she said, "my cousin will never bear the smell of a tallow candle; suppose we buy a wax one?" And she darted, swift as a bird, to get the five-franc piece which she had just received for her monthly expenses. "Here, Nanon," she cried, "quick!

A year at the breast is quite enough; children who are suckled longer are said to grow stupid, and I am all for popular sayings.

Corruption has come to him with fortune, — as it always does!" he said to himself

The widow employed her woman's malice to devise a system of covert persecution.

Al principio de la pasión, los obstáculos asustan a las personas sin experiencia, y los que encontraban los dos amantes se parecían mucho a las ataduras con que los liliputienses habían atado a Gulliver. Eran cosas sin importancia que al multiplicarse hacían imposible todo impulso y anulaban los más violentos deseos.

Je vais vous éclairer, moi, la position dans laquelle vous êtes; mais je vais le faire avec la supériorité d'un homme qui, après avoir examiné les choses d'ici-bas, a vu qu'il n'y avait que deux partis à prendre : ou une stupide obéissance ou la révolte. Je

You were not born to be the mother of a family or the steward of a household. If you have children, I hope they will not come to spoil your figure on the morrow of your marriage; nothing is so bourgeois as to have a child at once. If you have them two or three years after your marriage, well and good;

decline to descend as low as they can do is the one unpardonable sin. In their feeling towards loftier natures, there is a trace of hate and fear. Too much honour with them implies censure of themselves, a thing forgiven neither to the living nor to the dead.

Men without means ought to be perfect," added Moreau, not suspecting the profundity of that cruel sentence.

Tanto en el interior como en el exterior, Madame de Bargeton vivía siempre en público. Estos detalles sirven por sí solos para ilustrar lo que es una provincia; los deslices en ella o son confesados o son imposibles.

The purpose of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. It's not about making good or bad copies, it's about poetry!

Vous devenez si économe que vous finirez par trouver le moyen de vous nourrir en humant l'air de la cuisine.

the first three years of their married life, she was a prey to continual terror. She represented in their union the sagacious and fore-casting side, — doubt, opposition, and fear; while Cesar, on the other hand, was the embodiment of audacity, energy, and the inexpressible delights of fatalism. Yet in spite of these appearances the husband often quaked, while the wife, in reality, was possessed of patience and true courage.

Otherwise a sculptor could save himself the trouble and take a cast of a woman! And yet, try making a cast of your mistress's hand and