Quotes from Honore de Balzac

A paris on trouve moyen de vous assassiner un homme en disant " il a bon cœur". Cette phrase veut dire " le pauvre garçon est bête comme un rhinocéros

Monsieur, I owe you a million thanks — — " "A million thanks," thought he to himself, "that is too many; it does not mean one.

Lucien ne reconnut pas sa Louise dans cette chambre froide, sans soleil, à rideaux passés, dont le carreau frotté semblait misérable, où le meuble était usé, de mauvais goût, vieux ou d'occasion. Il est en effet certaines personnes qui n'ont plus ni le même aspect ni la même valeur, une fois séparées des figures, des choses, des lieux qui leur servent de cadre. Les

Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her friend 'Shapron,'" he said, imitating Ursula's infant speech, "I wish to see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall do nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul; but in my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian.

The fires of remorse burned in his heart, and gave him intolerable pain, the generous secret remorse which men seldom take into account when they sit in judgement upon their fellow-men; but perhaps the angels in heaven, beholding it, pardon the criminal whom our justice condemns.

Such 'rubbish,' dear child," he resumed, "is frequently all that remains of vanished civilizations. An Etruscan jar, and a necklace, which sometimes fetch forty and fifty thousand francs, is 'rubbish' which reveals the perfection of art at the time of the siege of Troy, proving that the Etruscans were Trojan refugees in Italy.

It is wonderful how you found the heart to do it! Such villainies demand a display of resource quite above the comprehension of those bourgeoises whom you laugh at and despise. They can give and forgive; they know how to love and suffer. The grandeur of their devotion dwarfs us. Rising higher in the social scale, one finds just as much mud as at the lower end; but with this difference, at the upper end it is hard and gilded over.

La hardiesse du vrai s'élève à des combinaisons interdites à l'art, tant elles sont invraisemblables ou peu décentes, à moins que l'écrivain ne les adoucisse, ne les émonde, ne les châtre.

Agathe rose; her scissors and work fell at her feet; she went and kissed Joseph's head, and dropped two tears on his hair. "He is your passion, that fellow," said the painter. "We all have our hopeless passions

la plus inquiète, la plus rapide, la plus jalouse, la plus ardente, la plus violente, la plus simple, la plus é

Il genio è pazienza, come ha detto Buffon. La pazienza è in effetti ciò che, nell'uomo, somiglia di più ai procedimenti che segue la natura quando crea. Che cos'è l'arte, signore? è la natura concentrata.»

The married couple who intend to love each other during their whole life have no notion of a honeymoon; for them it has no existence, or rather its existence is perennial; they are like the immortals who do not understand death.

Pleasure being caused by the union of sensation and sentiment, we can say without fear of contradiction that pleasures are a sort of material ideas.

We talked together through that silence in the language of thought. Nothing is more rapturous than these mute conversations.

I see no room in this city for the gentle ways of love, for precious walks in shady alleys, the full moon sparkling on the water, while the suppliant pleads in vain. Rich, young, and beautiful, I have only to love, and love would become my sole occupation, my life; yet in the three months during which I have come and gone, eager and curious, nothing has appealed to me in the bright, covetous, keen eyes around me. No voice has thrilled me, no glance has made the world seem brighter.

Increase the number of honest women and diminish the number of celibates, as much as you choose, you will always find that the result will be a larger number of gallant adventurers than of honest women.

A lover speaks of nothing to a woman but that which exalts her; while a husband, although he may be a loving one, can never refrain from giving advice which always has the appearance of reprimand.

Who is she? Did you know her young? What of her birth? Had she father and mother, or was she born of the conjunction of ice and sun? She burns and yet she freeze; she shows herself and then withdraws; she attracts me and repulses me; she brings me life, she gives me death; I love her and yet I hate her! I cannot live thus; let me be wholly in heaven or in hell!

Is there, then, a law for the inner fruits of the heart, as there is for the visible fruits of nature? Can joy be made lasting? In what proportion should love mingle tears with pleasures? The cold policy of the funereal, monotonous, persistent routine of the convent seemed to me at these moments the only real life; while the wealth, the splendor, the tears, the delights, the triumph, the joy, the satisfaction, of a love equal, shared, and sanctioned, appeared a mere idle vision.

The problem of eternal beatitude is one of those whose solution is known only to God. Here, below, the sublimest poets have simply harassed their readers when attempting to picture paradise.

As a general thing, all women league themselves against a married man who is accused of tyranny; for a secret tie unites them all, as it unites all priests of the same religion.

No man would have torn himself from the comfort of a morning nap to listen to a minstrel in a jacket; none but a maid awakes to songs of love.

Women like to perform prodigies, break rocks, and soften natures which seem of iron.

A good husband is never the first to go to sleep at night or the last to awake in the morning.