Quotes from book
Une fille d'Ève

Name: Une fille d'Ève
Author: Honoré de Balzac

Honoré de BalzacOriginal title Une fille d'Ève (French, 1838)

“Kindness is not without its rocks ahead. People are apt to put it down to an easy temper and seldom recognize it as the secret striving of a generous nature; whilst, on the other hand, the ill-natured get credit for all the evil they refrain from.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 3: The Story of a Happy Woman.

“A man is a poor creature compared to a woman.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

Nous [les hommes] valons moins que vous
les femmes
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 9: A Husband's Triumph

“The man whose action habitually bears the stamp of his mind is a genius, but the greatest genius is not always equal to himself, or he would cease to be human.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

L'homme qui peut empreindre perpétuellement la pensée dans le fait est un homme de génie; mais l'homme qui a le plus de génie ne le déploie pas à tous les instants, il ressemblerait trop à Dieu.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 3: The Story of a Happy Woman.

“Tyranny produces two results, exactly opposite in character, and which are symbolized in those two great types of the slave in classical times — Epictetus and Spartacus. The one is hatred with its evil train, the other meekness with its Christian graces.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

La tyrannie produit deux effets contraires dont les symboles existent dans deux grandes figures de l'esclavage antique: Epictète et Spartacus, la haine et ses sentiments mauvais, la résignation et ses tendresses chrétiennes.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 3: The Story of a Happy Woman.

“Suicide, moreover, was at that time in vogue in Paris: what more suitable key to the mystery of life for a skeptical society?”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

D'ailleurs, le suicide régnait alors à Paris; ne doit-il pas être le dernier mot des sociétés incrédules?
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 7: Suicide.

“Girls brought up as you were, in a very strait-laced and puritan fashion, always pant for liberty and happiness, and the happiness they have never comes up to what they imagined. Those are the girls that make bad wives.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

Les filles élevées comme vous l'avez été, dans la contrainte et les pratiques religieuses, ont soif de la liberté, désirent le bonheur, et le bonheur dont elles jouissent n'est jamais aussi grand ni aussi beau que celui qu'elles ont rêvé. De pareilles filles font de mauvaises femmes.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 2: Sisterly Confidences.

“Lovers have a way of using this word "nothing" which implies exactly the opposite.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

Il y a une manière de dire ce mot rien entre amants, qui signifie tout le contraire.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 7: Suicide.

“Mothers with marriageable daughters ought to look out for men of this stamp, men with brains to act as protecting divinity, with worldly wisdom to diagnose like a surgeon, and with experience to take a mother’s place in warding off evil. These are the three cardinal virtues in matrimony.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

Les mères de famille devraient rechercher de pareils hommes pour leurs filles: l'Esprit est protecteur comme la Divinité, le Désenchantement est perspicace comme un chirurgien, l'Expérience est prévoyante comme une mère. Ces trois sentiments sont les vertus théologales du mariage.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 3: The Story of a Happy Woman.

“At fifteen, beauty and talent do not exist; there can only be promise of the coming woman.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

A quinze ans, ni la beauté ni le talent n'existent: une femme est tout promesse.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 5: Florine.

“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.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 4: A Man of Note.
Context: 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.