Honore de Balzac

Apparently Balzac was quite stout, one of the fattest amongst great novelists.  His appetite was legendary.  He would dine on a dozen of mutton cutlets, duck in turnip, a couple of partridges,  a Normandy sole as a starter.  The main course will be a hundred oysters.  And these will be finished off with dozen of pears, a variety of sweets and liqueur.

He was a complete pig that people considered him crass and very common.  He would eat directly from his knife and would devour his food with bits and pieces spraying round the room.

To give himself a sort of nobility, airs and graces, he changed his name to Balzac from Balssa and added the “de” for affectation.

However, even his frenemies cannot dispute Balzac’s greatness as a novelist.  He might owed his genius to coffee.  Apparently he was a great coffee drinker.  He would consume about 30 cups a day whilst  writing up to 12 hours non-stop.

An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man’s entire existence.
~Honoré de Balzac

A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.
– Honore de Balzac

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Behind every great fortune there is a crime
– Honore de Balzac

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Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.
– Honore de Balzac
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Coffee falls into the stomach… ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop… the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, smiles arise, the paper is covered with ink. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle.
-Honore de Balzac
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Despotism accomplishes great things illegally; liberty doesn’t even go to the trouble of accomplishing small things legally.
– Honere de Balzac
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Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.
– Honore de Balzac
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Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole.
~ Honoré de Balzac

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.
~Honoré de Balzac

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Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their littlenesses, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.—Balzac.

Hatred is a tonic.  It makes one live, it inspires vengeance; but pity kills, it makes our weakness weaker.

– Balzac

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In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.
-Honore de Balzac
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I am not deep but very wide.

– Honore de Balzac

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If we all said to people’s faces what we say behind their backs, society would be impossible.

– Honore de Balzac

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It is easy to sit up and take notice.  what is difficult is getting up and taking action.

– Honore de Balzac

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It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time.
– Balzac

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Love is the poetry of the senses.
~Honoré de Balzac

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Marriage must constantly fight against a monster which devours everything:  routine.
~Honore de Balzac

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Man is neither good nor bad; he is born with instinct and abilities.

– Balzac

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Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
– Balzac

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Narrow minds can develop as well through persecution as through benevolence; they can assure themselves of their power by tyrannizing cruelly or beneficently over others.
~Honore de Balzac

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No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.
– Balzac
(huh?)

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Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.
~Honoré de Balzac

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The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.
– Honore de Balzac

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The more you judge, the less you love.
Honore de Balzac

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