French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
Make another failure like that ... and you'll be immortal.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Man himself is not a finished creation; if he were, God would not Be.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
One thought borne inward, one prayer uplifted, one suffering endured, one echo of the Word within us, and our souls are forever changed.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Raise those great black eyes of yours, fixed on my opening sentence, and 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?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of the Spiritual world.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Silliness has two ways of comporting itself; it talks, or is silent. Silent silliness can be borne.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Pierrette
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
The virtue of women is perhaps a question of temperament.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
The woman who allows herself to be found out deserves her fate.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
There are husbands, tall and of superior intellect, whose wives have lovers who are ugly, short, or stupid.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
There is no good fete without a morrow.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
Thoughts of adultery do not take possession of the heart of a married woman all at once, like a shot from a pistol.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
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
We regard it as an infallible principle that great sweetness of disposition united in a woman with plainness that is not repulsive, form two indubitable elements of success in securing the greatest possible happiness to the home.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
When a human soul draws its first furrow straight, the rest will follow surely.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
Who would not at the present moment wish to retain the persuasion that wives are virtuous? Are they not the supreme flower of the country? Are they not all blooming creatures, fascinating the world by their beauty, their youth, their life and their love? To believe in their virtue is a sort of social religion, for they are the ornament of the world, and form the chief glory of France.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Wisdom is the understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by Love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
A society of atheists would immediately invent a religion.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Le catechisme social
A woman's life begins with her first passion.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gambara
Between persons who are perpetually in each other's company dislike or love increases daily; every moment brings reasons to love or hate each other more and more.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours