Quotes from Honore de Balzac

This power of awakening a world of grave and sweet and tender memories by a familiar and sometimes lively ditty, is the privilege of those popular songs which are the superstitions of music, — if we may use the word "superstition" as signifying all that remains after the ruin of a people, all that survives their revolutions.

And, then, my daughter, my daughter! whose nurse I am, whose companion I must be; so that I can work but a few hours snatched from sleep. Ah, young man! none but the wretched can judge the wretched! Sometimes I think I used to be too stern to misery.

Great ladies, my child, are great just because they can do their duty on every occasion, and do it nobly." "But what is it about?" asked Clotilde as white as a lily. "Matters too serious to be discussed with you, my dearest," the Duchess replied. "For if they are untrue, your mind would be unnecessarily sullied; and if they are true, you must never know them.

Already I begin to drop convent habits for those of society. I spend the evening writing to you till the moment for going to bed arrives. This has been postponed to ten o'clock, the hour at which my mother goes out, if she is not at the theatre. There are twelve theatres in Paris.

From time to time a few of them, noticeable for the rosaries hanging from their necks (dangerous as it was to carry that sign of a religion which was suppressed, rather than abolished) shook their long hair and raised their heads defiantly.

c?ci excesele de orice soi împing trupul pe calea spre care e predispus din na?tere: ca ?i înv???tura mult?, be?ia îl îngra?? pe cel gras ?i îl sl?be?te pe cel slab.

We may see by what happens in our own day how history is falsified at the very moment when events happen.

Melancholy, at first, no doubt, lends a certain attractive grace, but it ends by dragging the features and blighting the loveliest face.

What does Madame Schinner say to all this?" pursued the count; "for I believe you married, out of love, the beautiful Adelaide de Rouville, the protegee of old Admiral de Kergarouet; who, by the bye, obtained for you the order for the Louvre ceilings through his nephew, the Comte de Fontaine.

Mavi de, bütün çe?itleriyle, göklerden al?nm??t?r, beyazla iyi ba?da??r. Bunlar?n ikisi de birer safl?k de?il midir?

Muchas mujeres son tan exageradas en su culto, que quieren encontrar siempre un dios en su ídolo, mientras que las que aman a un hombre más por lo que es que por sí mismas adoran sus pequeñeces tanto como sus grandezas.

the bourgeois, essentially the friend of order, always revolting in his moral being against power, though always obeying it; a creature feeble in the mass but fierce in isolated circumstances, hard as a constable when his own rights are in question,

Yes, a man fears to find in such a woman something unattainable, unpossessable, unconquerable. The woman of strong mind should remain a symbol; as a reality she must be feared. Camille Maupin is in some ways the living image of Schiller's Isis, seated in the darkness of the temple, at whose feet her priests find the dead bodies of the daring men who have consulted her.

I promised myself that I would go through everything thoroughly; I would try the ceilings, and floors, and walls, and cornices to discover all the gold, hoarded with such passionate greed by a Dutch miser worthy of a Rembrandt's brush. In all the course of my professional career I have never seen such impressive signs of the eccentricity of avarice.

Tout écrivain porte en son coeur un monstre qui, semblable au taenia dans l'estomac, y dévore les sentiments à mesure qu'ils y éclosent. Qui triomphera ? la maladie de l'homme, ou l'homme de la maladie ? Certes, il faut être un grand homme pour tenir la balance entre son génie et son caractère. Le talent grandit, le coeur se dessèche. A moins d'être un colosse, à moins d'avoir des épaules d'Hercule, on reste ou sans coeur ou sans talent. Vous

Hay ciertas personas que no tienen ya el mismo valor una vez separadas de los rostros, de las cosas y de los lugares que les sirven de marco.

People without religion are capable of anything.

Just as Clara Gazul is the female pseudonym of a distinguished male writer, George Sand the masculine pseudonym of a woman of genius, so Camille Maupin was the mask behind which was long hidden a charming young woman, very well-born, a Breton, named Felicite des Touches, the person who was now causing such lively anxiety to the Baronne du Guenic and the excellent rector of Guerande.

Marriage," said Butscha, "is like a lawsuit; there's always one side discontented. If one dupes the other, certainly half the husbands in the world are playing a comedy at the expense of the other half." "From which you conclude, Sieur Butscha?" inquired Modeste. "To pay the utmost attention to the manoeuvres of the enemy," answered the clerk.

Néanmoins, en 1819, époque à laquelle ce drame commence, il s'y trouvait une pauvre jeune fille. En quelque discrédit

El dolor dejó en el rostro de esta mujer un velo de tristeza. Esta nube no se disipó hasta la edad terrible en que la mujer comienza a añorar sus buenos tiempos pasados sin haberlos disfrutado, cuando ve marchitarse sus rosas y cuando los deseos del amor renacen con el ansia de prolongar las últimas sonrisas de la juventud.

Los ojos comparan antes de que el corazón haya rectificado este rápido y maquinal juicio.

La santa criatura ignoraba que donde empieza la ambición cesan los sentimientos ingenuos.

He puesto demasiadas esperanzas en ti para no tener miedo de todo. Para mí, una separación es el primer paso hacia el abandono, y el abandono es la muerte.