Quotes About Balzac

The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.

Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?

The word 'love,' used in connection with the reproduction of our species, is the most odious blasphemy taught in our times.

Poverty has in its favour an exquisite sleep filled with beautiful dreams.

The Oratorian boarding school in Vendôme, which Balzac was sent to at a young age. It was a gruelling and miserable place to live, with severe monastic rules.

she perceived several couples whose too hearty glee suggested nothing conjugal;

If ye were of this world the world would love you, but I have chosen you out of the world; be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

This short novel is the opening work of the Scènes de la vie privée, the first volume of La Comédie humaine. The novella was originally entitled Gloire et Malheur (Glory and Misfortune) when it was written in 1829. Published by Mame-Delaunay in the following year, it was followed by four revised editions. The final edition was published by Furne in 1842, appearing under the title of La Maison du chat-qui-pelote.

Bixiou. "Don't you think all that is a little too florid? I should tone down the poetry. 'Imperial idol!' 'bent the knee!' damn it, my dear fellow, writing vaudevilles has ruined your style; you can't come down to pedestrial prose. I should say, 'He belonged to the small number of those who.' Simplify, simplify! the man himself was a simpleton.

keep this excitement for the letter which shall tell you of my first love. By the way, why always "first?" Is there, I wonder, a second love?

The town produces somewhat the same effect upon the mind as a sleeping-draught upon the body. It is silent as Venice.

Votre cousin est mignon, mignon, mais vraiment mignon.

Give what name you like to my presentiments, but I am afraid that my happiness will be paid for by some horrible catastrophe.

She is right," said the baroness. "We are sent into the world to marry." "Do you encourage her in disobedience?" said the baron to his wife, who, terrified by the word, now changed to marble. "Refusing to obey an unjust order is not disobedience," said Ginevra.

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.

a true Provencal version of the Harlowe family.

Principles are the pivot on which the hands of the political barometer turn." There was an instant shout of laughter.

Do not infer from this that either side is taken here; either that of the Emperor Nicholas against Poland, or that of Poland against the Emperor. It would be a foolish thing to slip political discussion into tales that are intended to amuse or interest

Balzac's first works were written without any overall plan, but by 1830 the author began to group his first novels (e.g. Sarrasine, Gobseck) into a series entitled Scènes de la vie privée (Scenes from Private Life).

It was at this time that he devised the idea of having characters reappear from novel to novel, and the first novel to use this technique was Le Père Goriot in 1834. The idea may seem simple now to modern readers, but having characters reappearing in novels over a time period creates an impression as though they have lives of their own.

It is from the shock of characters, and not from the struggle of opinions, that antipathies are generated.

The mud splashes you as you drive through it in your carriage—you are a respectable person; you go afoot and are splashed—you are a scoundrel

Une des plus grandes niaiseries du commerce parisien est de vouloir trouver le succès dans les analogues, quand il est dans les contraires A

You know, Balzac once described bureaucracy as a giant mechanism operated by pygmies." "What'd your buddy Balzac have to say about inadmissible evidence?" "Not a lot. I think he considered the subject beneath him.