HONORÉ DE BALZAC QUOTES XVII

French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)

Then, let every one question his conscience on this point, and search his memory if he has ever met a man who confined himself to the love of one woman only!

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: conscience


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 married woman, then, in France presents the spectacle of a queen out at service, of a slave, at once free and a prisoner.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: France


Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot

Tags: suffering


If the human heart sometimes finds moments of pause as it ascends the slopes of affection, it rarely halts on the way down.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Père Goriot


If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Père Goriot

Tags: civilization


To follow the impulse of love and feeling is the secret law of every woman's heart.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: law


A woman's life begins with her first passion.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Gambara

Tags: life


Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.

HONORE DE BALZAC

attributed, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources

Tags: misfortune


Clouds signify the veil of the Most High.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita


Thus your invisible moral universe and your visible physical universe are one and the same matter. We will not separate properties from substances, nor objects from effects. All that exists, all that presses upon us and overwhelms us from above or from below, before us or in us, all that which our eyes and our minds perceive, all these named and unnamed things compose—in order to fit the problem of Creation to the measure of your logic—a block of finite Matter; but were it infinite, God would still not be its master.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: universe


Therefore Prayer, issuing from so many trials, is the consummation of all truths, all powers, all feelings.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Seraphita

Tags: prayer


If love is the first of the passions, it is because it gratifies them all.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: love


An honest woman is necessarily a married woman.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage


There are those whose character is like a chestnut without a kernel.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: character


Happiness in marriage results in perfect union of soul between a married pair. Hence it follows that in order to be happy a man must feel himself bound by certain rules of honor and delicacy. After having enjoyed the benefit of the social law which consecrates the natural craving, he must obey also the secret laws of nature by which sentiments unfold themselves. If he stakes his happiness on being himself loved, he must himself love sincerely: nothing can resist a genuine passion.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: happiness


Between two beings susceptible of love, the duration of passion is in proportion to the original resistance of the woman, or to the obstacles which the accidents of social life put in the way of your happiness.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: happiness


If love is a child, passion is a man.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: love


A wife is to her husband just what her husband has made her.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage


Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they refrain from.

HONORE DE BALZAC

Le Siècle

Tags: kindness