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
Honore de Balzac quotes about
strong creative secret
Forgetting is the great secret of strong and creative lives.
passion dumb deaf
Passion is born deaf and dumb.
laughter joining-in joining
To promote laughter without joining in it greatly heightens the effect.
exaggeration-is literature bad-grades
We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.
pain shadow world
For pain is perhaps but a violent pleasure? Who could determine the point where pleasure becomes pain, where pain is still a pleasure? Is not the utmost brightness of the ideal world soothing to us, while the lightest shadows of the physical world annoy?
paris gondolas doe
Does anyone know where these gondolas of Paris come from? [Fr., Ne sait on pas ou viennent ces gondoles Parisiennes?]
dog art wind
No hawk swooping down upon his prey, no stag improvising new detours by which to trick the huntsman, no dog scenting game from afar is comparable in speed to the celerity of a salesman when he gets wind a deal, to his skill in tripping up or forestalling a rival, and to the art with which he sniffs out and discovers a possible sale.
hatred giants journalism
Journalism is a giant catapult set in motion by pigmy hatreds.
couple passion duration
The duration of a couple's passion is in proportion to the woman's original resistance or to the obstacles that social hazards have placed in the way of her happiness.
passion law forgiving
Passions are no more forgiving than human laws and they reason more justly. Are they not based on a conscience of their own, infallible as an instinct?
fate men joy
All men can bear a familiar, definite misfortune better than the cruel alternations of a fate which, from one moment to another, brings excessive joy or sorrow.
wine misfortunes
Nothing is as heady as the wine of misfortune.
voice soul desert
Misfortune makes of certain souls a vast desert through which rings the voice of God.
generosity people twenties
As a rule, only the poor are generous. Rich people can always find excellent reasons for not handing over twenty thousand francs to a relative.