Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) was a prolific French novelist and playwright. He is sometimes called “the Shakespeare of the novel.”
Born in Tours, France, Balzac studied law and worked in a law office in Paris for three years before embarking on a career as a writer. By age 29, Balzac had no success as a writer. He also failed in many business ventures and was deeply in debt for much of his life. To keep ahead of his creditors, he worked feverishly. He napped often and wrote 14 hours a day, sustaining himself with massive amounts of pipe tobacco, food, and innumerable cups of strong black coffee. It is estimated that he consumed some 50,000 cups of coffee during his lifetime—something that probably contributed to his death.
Between 1830 and 1832, Balzac published Scènes de la Vie privée (Scenes from Private Life,) a series of six novelettes that finally brought him literary attention. In 1833, Balzac came to a decision to redefine the scope and the structure of his novels so that his distinct books would become chapters in an ever-expanding fictional universe. Balzac opted to pull his old and new novels together through recurring characters and themes and present a cohesive picture of French life. He called this project La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy.) By the end of his life, The Human Comedy incorporated over 90 novels and novellas, and included over 2,000 identified characters.
No novelist wrote as many good novels as Balzac. He gained notoriety as a printer’s nightmare. He frequently rewrote and recast his novels from printer’s proofs, at great expense to himself.
Balzac’s vivacity, as well as his innovative paradigm of what the novel and the novelist can do to portray the human and social experience in all its complexity, make him one of the most influential celebrities in the history of fiction.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Honore de Balzac
We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.
—Honore de Balzac
Some troubles, like a protested note of a solvent debtor, bear interest.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Blessings, Silver Linings
Above all do not ask that justice be just: It is just, because it is justice. The idea of a just justice could have originated only in the brain of an anarchist.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Justice
Necessity is often the spur to genius.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties, Necessity
Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Role models
A mother who is really a mother is never free.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Mothers, Mother, Family
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Mothers, Mothers Day, Motherhood, Forgiveness
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.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Difficulty, Marriage
To kill a relative of whom you are tired is something. But to inherit his property afterwards, that is genuine pleasure.
—Honore de Balzac
Hope is a light diet, but very stimulating.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Hope
Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart, like a viper in its hole.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Envy
After all, our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Worry
There is no such thing as a great talent without great willpower.
—Honore de Balzac
To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals—that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.
—Honore de Balzac
Topics: Ideals
The errors of women spring, almost always, from their faith in the good, or their confidence in the true.
—Honore de Balzac
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Roland Barthes French Literary Theorist
Alfred de Musset French Poet, Playwright
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand French Writer, Statesman
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) French Writer
Guy de Maupassant French Short-story Writer
Gustave Flaubert French Novelist
Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
Jules Verne French Novelist
Colette French Novelist, Performer
Alexis de Tocqueville French Historian, Political Scientist