Quotes from book
Séraphîta

Name: Séraphîta
Author: Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de BalzacOriginal title Séraphîta (French, 1834)

Séraphîta is a French novel by Honoré de Balzac with themes of androgyny. It was published in the Revue de Paris in 1834. In contrast with the realism of most of the author's best known works, the story delves into the fantastic and the supernatural to illustrate philosophical themes.

“Man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.

“Remorse is impotence, impotence which sins again. Repentance alone is powerful; it ends all.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.

“The most real of all splendors are not in outward things, they are within us.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 4: The Clouds of the Sanctuary.

“Wisdom is the understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by Love.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.

“Clouds signify the veil of the Most High.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.

“Nature knows nothing but solid bodies; your science deals only with combinations of surfaces. And so nature constantly gives the lie to all your laws; can you name one to which no fact makes an exception?”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 4: The Clouds of the Sanctuary.

“White and shining virgin of all human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong, like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it; like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 6: The Road to Heaven.

“We have long struggles with ourself, of which the outcome is one of our actions; they are, as it were, the inner side of human nature. This inner side is God's; the outer side belongs to men.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.

“The tiniest flower is a thought, — a life which corresponds to certain lineaments of the Great Whole, of which they have a constant intuition.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.

“Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of the Spiritual world.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 3: Seraphita - Seraphitus.
Context: Science is the language of the Temporal world, Love is that of the Spiritual world. Thus man takes note of more than he is able to explain, while the Angelic Spirit sees and comprehends. Science depresses man; Love exalts the Angel. Science is still seeking, Love has found. Man judges Nature according to his own relations to her; the Angelic Spirit judges it in its relation to Heaven. In short, all things have a voice for the Spirit.

“If we study Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we cannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment — giving to that word its exact significance.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta

Source: Seraphita (1835), Ch. 2: Seraphita.
Context: If we study Nature attentively in its great evolutions as in its minutest works, we cannot fail to recognize the possibility of enchantment — giving to that word its exact significance. Man does not create forces; he employs the only force that exists and which includes all others, namely Motion, the breath incomprehensible of the sovereign Maker of the universe.

“Science depresses man; Love exalts the Angel. Science is still seeking, Love has found. Man judges Nature according to his own relations to her; the Angelic Spirit judges it in its relation to Heaven. In short, all things have a voice for the Spirit.”

Honoré de Balzac book Séraphîta