Honore de Balzac
Honore de Balzac
Honoré de Balzacbal.zak], born Honoré Balzac, 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie Humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 May 1799
CountryFrance
grief people shining
Grief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere.
grief heart giving
Give to a wounded heart seclusion; consolation nor reason ever effected anything in such a case.
taken poison glory
Glory is a poison, good to be taken in small doses.
mean crowns dinner
Glory and fame mean twelve thousand francs' worth of paid articles in the newspapers and five thousand crowns' worth of dinners.
judging people crime
What moralist can deny that well-bred and vicious people are much more agreeable than their virtuous counterparts? Having crimes to atone for, they provisionally solicit indulgence by showing leniency toward the defects of their judges. Thus they pass for excellent folk.
smell hot-days milk
The innocence of virgins is like milk which turns when exposed to a clap of thunder, to a tart smell, to a hot day, to the merest nothing.
character men two
Alas, two men are often necessary to provide a woman with a perfect lover, just as in literature a writer composes a type only by employing the singularities of several similar characters.
husband wife lovers
A lover teaches a wife all her husband has kept from her.
kindness heart character
Kindness steers no easy course. Attributing it to character, we seldom recognize the secret efforts of a noble heart, whereas we reward really wicked people for the evil they refrain from committing.
joy soul taste
The greatest joy a petty soul can taste is to dupe a great soul and catch it in a snare.
evil ends journalist
Journalists grow accustomed to seeing evil and they let it pass; they proceed to approve it, and they end by committing it themselves.
jealousy passion play
Jealousy, an eminently credulous and suspicious passion, allows fancy the greatest possible play. But it does not bestow wit, it banishes all sense.
jealousy fashion smart
In smart society men are jealous of one another after the fashion of women.
jealousy men want-something
In Paris every man must have had a love affair. What woman wants something that no other woman ever wanted.