Home / Quotes / Quote by Honore de Balzac

Quote by Honore de Balzac

“I declare, on my soul and conscience, that the attainment of power, or of a great name in literature, seemed to me an easier victory than a success with some young, witty, and gracious lady of high degree.”

Quote by Honore de Balzac

Book:The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin

Work

The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin

This narrative delves into the mystical world where the skin of a wild ass holds extraordinary magical properties, intertwining the lives of its characters with its enigmatic powers. more

Author

Honore de Balzac

French novelist born on May 20, 1799, and died on August 18, 1850. Honore de Balzac is renowned for his profound insight and criticism of 19th-century French society, hailed as the 'father of modern fiction'. more

You May Also Like

“A penniless man who has no ties to bind him is master of himself at any rate, but a luckless wretch who is in love no longer belongs to himself, and may not take his own life. Love makes us almost sacred in our own eyes; it is the life of another that we revere within us; then and so begins for us the cruelest trouble of all.”

Men Love May Eye Suffering Trouble Human Nature Masters Sacred Rate Ties Love Life

Book:The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin

Source: The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin

“Marriage is a fierce battle before which the two partners ask heaven for its blessing, because loving each other is the most audacious of enterprises; the battle is not slow to start, and victory, that is to say freedom, goes to the cleverest.”

Love Two Asks Heaven Marriage Victory Battle Blessing Partners Enterprise Fierce Audacious

Author:Honore de Balzac

“This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.”

“Nothing is so discreet as a young face, for nothing is less mobile; it has the serenity, the surface smoothness, and the freshnessof a lake. There is no character in women's faces before the age of thirty.”

Character Age Faces Young Youth Surface Thirty Lakes Serenity Mobile Discreet

Book:A Woman of Thirty: Works of Balzac

Source: A Woman of Thirty: Works of Balzac

“Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections for their daydreams, and put their trust in him.”

Men Mind Children Ideas Girl Education Imagine Figures Perfection Noble Sentiments Imaginary Daydreaming Extravagant Enchanting

Book:A Woman of Thirty: Works of Balzac

Source: A Woman of Thirty: Works of Balzac

“A year at the breast is quite enough; children who are suckled longer are said to grow stupid, and I am all for popular sayings.”

Years Children Said Enough Grows Education Stupid Breasts

Book:Letters of Two Brides

Source: Letters of Two Brides

“Ambitious men spend their youth in rendering themselves worthy of patronage; it is their great mistake. While the foolish creatures are laying in stores of knowledge and energy, so that they shall not sink under the weight of responsible posts that recede from them, schemers come and go who are wealthy in words and destitute of ideas, astonish the ignorant, and creep into the confidence of those who have a little knowledge.”

Source: The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin

“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?”

World Stills Pain Pleasure Human Nature Shadow Ideals Determine Violent Annoying Brightness Soothing Ideal World

Book:The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin

Source: The Magic Skin: Or The Wild Ass's Skin

“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.”

Country Law Mother Marriage Luck Vices Paris Encounters Strokes In-laws Vice Versa Mother In Law

Author:Honore de Balzac

“Virtue, my pet, is an abstract idea, varying in its manifestations with the surroundings. Virtue in Provence, in Constantinople, in London, and in Paris bears very different fruit, but is none the less virtue.”

Ideas Different Virtue Bears Fruit London Paris Manifestation Abstract Pet Surroundings Provence Constantinople

Book:Letters of Two Brides

Source: Letters of Two Brides