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Honore de Balzac Quotes - Page 22

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Jealousy, an eminently credulous and suspicious passion, allows fancy the greatest possible play. But it does not bestow wit, it banishes all sense.

Jealousy, an eminently credulous and suspicious passion, allows fancy the greatest possible play. But it does not bestow wit, it banishes all sense.

Honore de Balzac
Jealousy, Passion, Play

They [twin beds] are the most stupid, the most perfidious, and the most dangerous invention in the world. Shame and a curse on who thought of them.

Honore de Balzac
Stupid, Bed, World

Society proceeds like the ocean. After a disaster, it resume its wonted level and rhythms; its devouring interests efface all traces of damage.

Honore de Balzac
Ocean, Society, Levels

What moralists describe as the mysteries of the human heart are solely the deceiving thoughts, the spontaneous impulses of self-regard. The sudden changes in character, about which so much has been said, are instinctive calculations for the furtherance of our own pleasures. Seeing himself now in his fine clothes, his new gloves and shoes, Eugène de Rastignac forgot his noble resolve. Youth, when it swerves toward wrong, dares not look in the mirror of conscience; maturity has already seen itself there. That is the whole difference between the two phases of life.

Honore de Balzac
Heart, Character, Maturity

Where some one else's welfare is concerned, a young girl becomes as ingenious as a thief. Guileless where she herself is in question, and full of foresight for me,-she is like a heavenly angel forgiving the strange incomprehensible sins of earth.

Honore de Balzac
Girl, Angel, Forgiving
Honore de Balzac (2015). “Father Goriot”, p.92, Library of Alexandria

We flew back home like swallows. 'Is it happiness that makes us so light?' Agathe asked.

Honore de Balzac
Home, Light, Back Home

The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred.

Honore de Balzac
Heart, Hatred, Here And There
Honore de Balzac (2015). “Father Goriot”, p.24, Library of Alexandria

How did you get back?' asked Vautrin. 'I walked,' replied Eugene. 'I wouldn't like half-pleasures, myself,' observed the tempter. 'I'd want to go there in my own carriage, have my own box, and come back in comfort. All or nothing, that's my motto.' 'And a very good one,' said Madame Vauquer.

Honore de Balzac
Half, Want, Comfort

Genuine sorrows are very tranquil in appearance in the deep bed they have dug for themselves. But, seeming to slumber, they corrode the soul like that frightful acid which penetrates crystal.

Honore de Balzac
Soul, Sorrow, Bed

Pure herring oil is the port wine of English cats

Honore de Balzac
Wine, Cat, Oil

The errors of women spring, almost always, from their faith in the good, or their confidence in the true

Honore de Balzac
Spring, Mistake, Errors

A sacrament by virtue of which each imparts nothing but vexations to the other.

Honore de Balzac
Marriage, Vexation, Virtue

Glory is the sunshine of the dead

Honore de Balzac
Sunshine, Glory

As soon as man seeks to penetrate the secrets of Nature--in which nothing is secret and it is but a question of seeing--he realizes that the simple produces the supernatural.

Honore de Balzac
Simple, Men, Secret

Isn't it really quite extraordinary to see that, since man took his first step, no one has asked himself why he walks, how he walks, if he has ever walked, if he could walk better, what he achieves in walking .. questions that are tied to all the philosophical, psychological, and political systems which preoccupy the world.

Honore de Balzac
Philosophical, Journey, Men

Generally our confidences move downward rather than upward; in our secret affairs, we employ our inferiors much more than our bettors.

Honore de Balzac
Moving, Secret, Affair

To have one's mother-in-law in the country when one lives in Paris, and vice versa, is one of those strokes of luck that one encounters only too rarely.

Honore de Balzac
Marriage, Mother, Country

The fame of surgeons resembles the fame of actors, who live only during their lifetime and whose talent is no longer appreciable once they have disappeared.

Honore de Balzac
Death, Science, Actors

Love may be the fairest gem which Society has filched from Nature; but what is motherhood save Nature in her most gladsome mood? A smile has dried my tears.

Honore de Balzac
Smile, Motherhood, Tears
Honore de Balzac (2011). “Letters of Two Brides”, p.171, The Floating Press

The passion of love is essentially selfish, while motherhood widens the circle of our feelings.

Honore de Balzac
Love, Selfish, Passion
"Letters of Two Brides". Book by Honoré de Balzac, 1841-1842.

From the manner in which a woman draws her thread at every stitch of her needlework, any other woman can surmise her thoughts.

Honore de Balzac
Stitches, Thread, Needlework

A sick man, surrounded by those who love him, nursed by those who wish earnestly that he should live, will recover (all other things being equal), when another patient tended by hirelings will die. Doctors decline to see unconscious magnestism in this phenomenon; for them it is the result of intelligent nursing, of exact obedience to their orders; but many a mother knows the virtue of such ardent projections of strong, unceasing prayer.

Honore de Balzac
Mother, Strong, Prayer

There are no principles; there are only events. There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances.

Honore de Balzac
History, Principles, Events

It would be curious to know what leads a man to become a stationer rather than a baker, when he is no longer compelled, as among the Egyptians, to succeed to his father's craft.

Honore de Balzac
Father, Men, Bakers

In smart society men are jealous of one another after the fashion of women.

Honore de Balzac
Jealousy, Fashion, Smart

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