Honoré de Balzac Quotes

It is impossible any longer to question the priority of the Asiatic writings over our Holy Scriptures. For those who are able to admit this historical fact in good faith, the world grows astonishingly greater. Was it not on a plateau in Asia that the few men who survived the cataclysm found refuge? .. The history of the origin of man in the Bible is only the genealogy of a swarm which came out of the human hive hanging on the mountain- sides of Tibet between the summits of Himalaya and the Caucasus. . . . A great history rests beneath these names of men and places, behind these fictions which attract us irresistibly without our knowing why. Perhaps we breathe in them the air of our new humanity.

Une veuve a deux tâches dont les obligations se contredisent : elle est mère et doit exercer la puissance paternelle.

She was, as you know already without as yet knowing anything, the Lily of this valley, where she grew for heaven, filling it with the fragrance of her virtues.

Mankind are not perfect, but one age is more or less hypocritical than another, and then simpletons say that its morality is high or low.

The viscountess had raised the forefinger of her right hand and made a pretty gesture toward a stool at her feet. There was such intense tyrannical passion in the gesture that the marquis relinquished the doorknob and came back.

It is as difficult for towns and cities as it is for commercial houses to recover from ruin.

L'amour a son instinct, il sait trouver le chemin du cœur comme le plus faible insecte marche à sa fleur avec une irrésistible volonté qui ne s'épouvante de rien.

What a thing of fantasy a woman may become after dusk.

Cruelty and fear shake hands together. An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence.

What frightful tableaux might present themselves, if one could paint the ideas found in the souls of those who surround the deathbeds? And money is always the mobilizer of the intrigues elaborated, the plans formulated, the conspiracies woven!

Man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.

Yes, I can understand that a man might go to gambling table - when he sees that all that lies between himself and death is his last crown

With monuments as with men, position means everything.

Les musiciennes sont presque toujours amoureuses. Celle qui chantait ainsi devait savoir bien aimer.

"However," he continued, "this canvas is preferable to the paintings of that varlet Rubens, with his mountains of Flemish flesh sprinkled with vermilion, his waves of red hair and his medley of colors."