HONORÉ DE BALZAC QUOTES XIII

French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)

The man who enters his wife’s dressing-room is either a philosopher or an imbecile.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage


A long future requires a long past.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: future


For my part, I like those long trials of the old-fashioned chivalry. That lout of a young lord, who took offence because his sovereign-lady sent him down among the lions to fetch her glove, was, in my opinion, very impertinent, and a fool too. Doubtless the lady had in reserve for him some exquisite flower of love, which he lost, as he well deserved—the puppy!

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: fool


Though all things in society as well as in the universe are said to have a purpose, there do exist here below certain beings whose purpose and utility seem inexplicable.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Vicar of Tours

Tags: purpose


For want of exercising in nature’s own way the activity bestowed upon women, and yet impelled to spend it in some way or other, Mademoiselle Gamard had acquired the habit of using it in petty intrigues, provincial cabals, and those self-seeking schemes which occupy, sooner or later, the lives of all old maids.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Vicar of Tours

Tags: habit


Thus we are brought to the third circle of this hell, which, perhaps, will some day find its Dante.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Girl with the Golden Eyes

Tags: Hell


The words fell as the axe of a skillful woodman falls at the root of a young tree and brings it down at a single blow.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: tree


To seize adroitly upon the varieties of pleasure, to develop them, to impart to them a new style, an original expression, constitutes the genius of a husband.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: genius


Now it is impossible for a woman who is perpetually at war with herself and living in contradiction to her true life, to leave others in peace or refrain from envying their happiness.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Vicar of Tours

Tags: happiness


Let the man whom I deign to love beware how he thinks of anything but loving me!

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: love


Make another failure like that ... and you'll be immortal.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: failure


Great artists are beings who, to quote Napoleon, can cut off at will the connection which Nature has put between the senses and thought.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: artists


When she plays, an actress can live no life of her own; she can neither dress, nor eat, nor talk.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: life


What woman wants pity?... A man's sternness is to us our only pardon.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

A Daughter of Eve

Tags: pity


The eyes of the good vicar never reached the optical range which enables men of the world to see and evade their neighbors' rough points. Before he could be brought to perceive the faults of his landlady he was forced to undergo the warning which Nature gives to all her creatures--pain.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

The Vicar of Tours

Tags: faults


We cannot measure the vast orbit of the Divine thought of which we are but an atom as small as God is great; but we can feel its vastness, we can kneel, adore, and wait.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: God


It will perhaps appear extraordinary that in speaking of marriage we have touched upon so many subjects; but marriage is not only the whole of human life, it is the whole of two human lives. Now just as the addition of a figure to the drawing of a lottery multiplies the chances a hundredfold, so one single life united to another life multiplies by a startling progression the risks of human life, which are in any case so manifold.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: life


The woman who allows herself to be found out deserves her fate.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: fate


If a man strike his mistress it is a self-inflicted wound; but if he strike his wife it is suicide!

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: suicide


A flow of words is a sure sign of duplicity.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: words