French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
We will not attempt to enumerate the women who are virtuous from stupidity, for it is acknowledged that in love all women have intellect.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Further, we acknowledge that, to the credit of our age, we meet, ever since the revival of morality and religion and during our own times, some women, here and there, so moral, so religious, so devoted to their duties, so upright, so precise, so stiff, so virtuous, so--that the devil himself dare not even look at them; they are guarded on all sides by rosaries, hours of prayer and directors. Pshaw!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The married woman is a slave whom one must know how to set upon a throne.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
A husband ought never to be the first to go to sleep and the last to awaken.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
In short, the terrible Raoul is grotesque. His movements are jerky, as if produced by imperfect machinery; his gait rejects all idea of order, and proceeds by spasmodic zig-zags and sudden stoppages, which knock him violently against peaceable citizens on the streets and boulevards of Paris. His conversation, full of caustic humor, of bitter satire, follows the gait of his body; suddenly it abandons its tone of vengeance and turns sweet, poetic, consoling, gentle, without apparent reason; he falls into inexplicable silences, or turns somersets of wit, which at times are somewhat wearying. In society, he is boldly awkward, and exhibits a contempt for conventions and a critical air about things respected which makes him unpleasant to narrow minds, and also to those who strive to preserve the doctrines of old-fashioned, gentlemanly politeness; but for all that there is a sort of lawless originality about him which women do not dislike. Besides, to them, he is often most amiably courteous; he seems to take pleasure in making them forget his personal singularities, and thus obtains a victory over antipathies which flatters either his vanity, his self-love, or his pride.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Ambitious men ought to follow curved lines, the shortest road in politics.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Marriage is a tyranny.... Surely it is simply the keeping of a devil in a mob-cap!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
We do not attach ourselves permanently to any possessions, excepting in proportion to the trouble, toil and longing which they have cost us.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Talent in love, as in every other art, consists in the power of forming a conception combined with the power of carrying it out.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
What is Art, monsieur, but Nature concentrated?
HONORE DE BALZAC
Lost Illusions
The old man’s lips were drawn in puckers, like a curtain, to either corner of his mouth.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
In one of the finest houses of the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, at half-past eleven at night, two young women were sitting before the fireplace of a boudoir hung with blue velvet of that tender shade, with shimmering reflections, which French industry has lately learned to fabricate. Over the doors and windows were draped soft folds of blue cashmere, the tint of the hangings, the work of one of those upholsterers who have just missed being artists. A silver lamp studded with turquoise, and suspended by chains of beautiful workmanship, hung from the centre of the ceiling. The same system of decoration was followed in the smallest details, and even to the ceiling of fluted blue silk, with long bands of white cashmere falling at equal distances on the hangings, where they were caught back by ropes of pearl. A warm Belgian carpet, thick as turf, of a gray ground with blue posies, covered the floor. The furniture, of carved ebony, after a fine model of the old school, gave substance and richness to the rather too decorative quality, as a painter might call it, of the rest of the room. On either side of a large window, two etageres displayed a hundred precious trifles, flowers of mechanical art brought into bloom by the fire of thought. On a chimney-piece of slate-blue marble were figures in old Dresden, shepherds in bridal garb, with delicate bouquets in their hands, German fantasticalities surrounding a platinum clock, inlaid with arabesques. Above it sparkled the brilliant facets of a Venice mirror framed in ebony, with figures carved in relief, evidently obtained from some former royal residence. Two jardinieres were filled with the exotic product of a hot-house, pale, but divine flowers, the treasures of botany.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Each household gathered in its chimney-corner, in houses carefully closed from the outer air, and well supplied with biscuit, melted butter, dried fish, and other provisions laid in for the seven-months winter. The very smoke of these dwellings was hardly seen, half-hidden as they were beneath the snow, against the weight of which they were protected by long planks reaching from the roof and fastened at some distance to solid blocks on the ground, forming a covered way around each building.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
All the sensations which a woman yields to her lover, she gives in exchange; they return to her always intensified; they are as rich in what they give as in what they receive. This is the kind of commerce in which almost all husbands end by being bankrupt.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Although it is true that tender and delicate souls are found enveloped in a body of metallic hardness, at the same time there are souls of bronze enveloped in bodies so supple and capricious that their grace attracts the friendship of others, and their beauty calls for a caress.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
To speak of love is to make love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The lover submits to all the caprices of a woman; and as a man is never vile while he lies in the arms of his mistress, he will take the means to please her that a husband would recoil from.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
One of the most important rules of the science of manners is an almost absolute silence in regard to yourself.
HONORE DE BALZAC
La Comédie Humaine
God makes no mistake in His judgments, Madame; I recognize no tribunal but His.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
Now headache is an affection which affords infinite resources to a woman. This malady, which is the easiest of all to feign, for it is destitute of any apparent symptom, merely obliges her to say: "I have a headache." A woman trifles with you and there is no one in the world who can contradict her skull.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage