French novelist and playwright (1799-1850)
Marriage is a tyranny.... Surely it is simply the keeping of a devil in a mob-cap!
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
In the life of man there are no two moments of pleasure exactly alike, any more than there are two leaves of identical shape upon the same tree.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Men, born doubtless to be beautiful—for all creatures have a relative beauty—are enrolled from their childhood beneath the yoke of force, beneath the rule of the hammer, the chisel, the loom, and have been promptly vulcanized.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
If we study Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we cannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment -- giving to that word its exact significance. Man does not create forces; he employs the only force that exists and which includes all others, namely Motion, the breath incomprehensible of the sovereign Maker of the universe.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
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
I am like an old attorney, unswayed by any sentiment whatever. I never accept any statement unless it be confirmed, according to the poetic maxim of Lord Byron, by the testimony of at least two false witnesses.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
What is Art, monsieur, but Nature concentrated?
HONORE DE BALZAC
Lost Illusions
The music of the Opera enchants me; and whilst my soul is plunged in divine pleasure, I am the centre of admiration and the focus of all the opera-glasses. But a single glance will make the boldest youth drop his eyes.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
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
Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.
HONORE DE BALZAC
A Woman of Thirty
"Women," she said, with tears in her eyes, "can only love; men act; they have a thousand ways in which they are bound to act. But we can only think, and pray, and worship."
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
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
The heavy curtain of Bureaucracy was drawn between the right thing to be done and the right man to do it.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Les Employés
It is extremely rare for young men, when driven to suicide, to attempt it a second time if the first fails. When it doesn't cure life, it cures all desire for voluntary death.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
A Daughter of Eve
All ends in God; and many are the ways to find Him by walking straight before us.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Seraphita
A husband never loses anything by appearing to believe in the fidelity of his wife, by preserving an air of patience and by keeping silence. Silence especially troubles a woman amazingly.
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
In married life, the moment when two hearts come to understand each other is sudden as a flash of lightning, and never returns, when once it is passed.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Unite a fine intelligence with a dwarfed intelligence and you precipitate a disaster; for it is necessary that equilibrium be preserved in everything.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
To speak of love is to make love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage