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Honoré de Balzac Quotes

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Famous Honoré de Balzac Quotes

“There is something noble as well as terrible about suicide. The downfall of many men is not dangerous, for they fall like children, too near the ground to do themselves harm. But when a great man breaks, he has soared up to the heavens, espied some inaccessible paradise, and then fallen from a great height. The forces that make him seek peace from the barrel of a gun cannot be placated. How many young talents confined to an attic room wither and perish for lack of a friend, a consoling wife, alone in the midst of a million fellow humans, while throngs of people weary of gold are bored with their possessions.”

BalzacThe Wild Ass S Skin
Book:The Wild Ass's Skin
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“... o ilk günden beri güneş daha az sıcak, daha az aydınlık, gece daha karanlık oldu; hareket hızını yitirdi, düşüncelere bir ağırlık geldi. Bazı insanları toprağa gömeriz, ama öyle insanlar vardır ki onların kefenleri yüreğimiz olmuştur, anıları her gün kalbimizin çarpışıyla beraberdir, soluk alır gibi onları düşünürüz, aşka özgü bir ruh titreşiminin tatlı yasasıyla varlığımıza sinmişlerdir. Bir ruh var ruhumda. Ben bir iyilik mi ettim, güzel bir söz mü söyledim, içimde bulunan o ruh hareket ediyor, konuşuyor; havaya yayılan güzel kokunun bir zambaktan gelişi gibi.”

QuoteBalzacVadideki Zambak
Book:Vadideki Zambak
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“Hemen hepimiz her sabah, yüreğimiz aşka susamış, içimiz içimize sığmayarak yola çıkarız. Sonra, bütün varlığımız acı deneylerden geçtiği, insanların ve olayların içine düştüğümüz zaman her şey, yavaş yavaş ve hiç farkında olmadan küçülür, kala kala geriye bir kül yığınının içindeki bir altın parçacığı kalır. Hayat dediğin budur işte! Gerçek hayat, olduğu gibi hayat!”

Balzac
Book:Vadideki Zambak
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“İyinin de, kötünün de bize işlemediği bir durum söz konusu olabilir. O zaman, boşlukta kendi kendine çalarak duygularımızı belirten, sessizlik içinde kaybolup giden ezgiler çıkaran bir org sebepsiz yere coşkulara tutulur, hiçbir melodi yaratmadan sesler çıkarmaya başlar. Yokluğun faydasızlığına başkaldıran bir ruhun içine düştüğü bir çeşit çelişkidir bu, müthiş bir çelişki. Bilinmez bir yaradan kan boşanması gibi, besinsiz kalmış gücümüzün akıp gittiği birtakım yorucu oyunlar.”

Balzac
Book:Vadideki Zambak
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“Have you ever plunged into the immensity of space and time by reading the geological treatises of Cuvier? Borne away on the wings of his genius, have you hovered over the illimitable abyss of the past as if a magician's hand were holding you aloft? As one penetrates from seam to seam, from stratum to stratum and discovers, under the quarries of Montmartre or in the schists of the Urals, those animals whose fossilized remains belong to antediluvian civilizations, the mind is startled to catch a vista of the milliards of years and the millions of peoples which the feeble memory of man and an indestructible divine tradition have forgotten and whose ashes heaped on the surface of our globe, form the two feet of earth which furnish us with bread and flowers. Is not Cuvier the greatest poet of our century? Certainly Lord Byron has expressed in words some aspects of spiritual turmoil; but our immortal natural historian has reconstructed worlds from bleached bones.”

MindSciencePoetryTimeNaturalSpacePoetGeniusCivilizationDiscoveryMemoryHistorianFossilsTurmoilGeologyImmensityLord ByronFeebleMontmartreDiscovererCuvierGeorges CuvierTreatiseUralsBaron Georges CuvierGeorge ByronGeorge Gordon ByronGeorge Gordon NoelGeorge Gordon Noel Byron
Book:The Wild Ass's Skin
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“Journalism, so far from being in the hands of a priesthood, came to be first a party weapon, and then a commercial speculation, carried on without conscience or scruple, like other commercial speculations. Every newspaper, as Blondet says, is a shop to which people come for opinions of the right shade. If there were a paper for hunchbacks, it would set forth plainly, morning and evening, in its columns, the beauty, the utility, and necessity of deformity. A newspaper is not supposed to enlighten its readers, but to supply them with congenial opinions. Give any newspaper time enough, and it will be base, hypocritical, shameless, and treacherous; the periodical press will be the death of ideas, systems, and individuals; nay, it will flourish upon their decay. It will take the credit of all creations of the brain; the harm that it does is done anonymously. We, for instance—I, Claude Vignon; you, Blondet; you, Lousteau; and you, Finot—we are all Platos, Aristides, and Catos, Plutarch’s men, in short; we are all immaculate; we may wash our hands of all iniquity. Napoleon’s sublime aphorism, suggested by his study of the Convention, ‘No one individual is responsible for a crime committed collectively,’ sums up the whole significance of a phenomenon, moral or immoral, whichever you please. However shamefully a newspaper may behave, the disgrace attaches to no one person.”

JournalismNews Media
Book:Lost Illusions
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“Si alguna ave de las que se hallan en el corral está enferma o lastimada, las otras la acometen a picotazos, la despluman y la matan. Fiel a esta ley fundamental del egoísmo, el mundo prodiga sus rigores a las miserias bastante osadas para venir a arrostrar sus fiestas, para entristecer sus placeres. El que sufre en el cuerpo o el alma, carece de dinero o de poder, es un paria. ¡Que se quede en su desierto! Si traspasa sus límites, encuentra en todas partes el invierno; miradas, modales, palabras, corazones fríos. ¡Dichoso si no recibe insultos en donde debía hallar consuelo! ¡Moribundos, quédense en sus lechos abandonados!”

Crítica SocialRealismoRealismo Romántico
Book:The Wild Ass's Skin
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“Kelak, sendainya ketika pulau Jawa tak lagi punya hiasan berupa musim semi yang berlangsung sepanjang masa, tak lagi punya panorama alam yang memesona, juga tak lagi punya rimbanya yang perawan, pula tak lagi ada kota-kota yang ramai oleh beragam suku bangsa, di mana bisa kau jumpai perpaduan keanggunan ala India dan kemewahan khas Eropa; atau pada akhirnya ketika pulau itu bisa bersih dari para bidadarinya yang menggairahkan, dan menyisakan hanya kawanan burung gelatik, maka sudah seharusnya kunjungan ziarah ke tanah Jawa tetap dilakukan demi mempelajari samai pada tingkat mana alam liar ini bisa menandingi kemampuan manusia dalam mencipta irama.”

NatureJourneyTravelBirdIndonesiaJavaOrientalism
Book:Voyage de Paris à Java / Un drame au bord de la mer
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“Malangnya, aku adalah seorang yang teramat buruk dalam hal ilmu alam, karenanya aku kerap mengabaikan banyak peristiwa ajaib melalui pengamatan yang hanya sepintas. Aku tak bisa menceritakan padamu berapa jumlah bulu sayap makhluk nan puitis ini, tak pula bisa menjelaskan di mana persisnya letak lubang hidung dalam paruhnya, atau apakah kedua rahangnya terhubung baik maupun bagaimanakah wujud tulang kakinya. Tapi bagaimanapun juga, gelatik ini adalah milikku...! Dia punyaku. Hanya aku yang mampu mendengar dan mengerti. Betul, burung ini, paling tidak pada kicauannya, adalah sebentuk rahasia antara jiwaku dan langit, seperti syair sendu terlukis dalam catatan Webber yang tetap menyimpan misteri antara dua orang yang saling mencintai.”

PoetryNatureKnowledgeJourneyTravelBirdIndonesiaJavaOrientalism
Book:Voyage de Paris à Java / Un drame au bord de la mer
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“Ver a tu amante dormida, risueña en su sueño apacible bajo tu protección, amándote hasta en sueños, en el momento en que la criatura parece dejar de ser, y ofreciéndote todavía una boca muda que en el sueño te habla del último beso; ver una mujer confiada, medio desnuda, aunque envuelta en su amor como en un manto, y casta en el seno del desorden; admirar sus vestidos esparcidos, una media de seda, quitada rápidamente la noche anterior para complacerte, un ceñidor desabrochado que te confiesa una fe infinita, ¿no es un gozo sin nombre? Ese ceñidor es un poema entero, la mujer a la que defendía ya no existe, es tuya, se ha hecho tú. Si le eres infiel en lo sucesivo, te hieres a ti mismo.”

Romanticismo
Book:The Wild Ass's Skin
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“Many married women, faithful to family duty and their husbands, will at this point probably ask themselves why such strong men, so really good and kind, who are so vulnerable to women like Madame Marneffe, do not find the realization of their dreams and the fulfilment of their passions in their wives, especially when their wives are like Adeline Hulot. The reason is linked with one of the most fundamental mysteries of human nature. Love, which awakens the mind to joy and delight, the virile, austere pleasure of the most noble faculties of the soul, and sex, the vulgar commodity sold in the market, are two aspects of the same thing. Women capable of satisfying the hunger for both are geniuses in their own kind, and no more numerous than the great writers, artists, and inventors of a nation. Men of all kinds, the distinguished man and the fool, the Hulots as much as the Crevels, desire both an ideal love and pleasure. They are all in quest of that mysterious hermaphrodite, that rare work, which most often turns out to be a work in two volumes.”

Love And Lust
Book:Cousin Bette
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“Existe un algo grande y espantoso en el suicidio. Las caídas de muchas personas no son peligrosas, son como las de los niños, que caen tan a ras del suelo que no se hacen daño; mas cuando un gran hombre se estrella, ha de venir de muy alto, haberse elevado hasta los cielos, haber entrevisto algún paraíso inaccesible. ¡Cuán implacables han de ser los huracanes que le fuerzan a pedir la paz del alma a la boca de una pistola! ¡Cuántos talentos jóvenes encerrados en una buhardilla languidecen y mueren por falta de un amigo, de una mujer consoladora, en el seno de un millón de seres, en presencia de una muchedumbre harta de oro y que se aburre!”

Crítica SocialRealismo Romántico
Book:La Piel de Zapa
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