“ I look on all actions as means to an end, and the end is all that I look at. What is a man’s life to me? ”
Honoré de Balzac, Father Goriot (1835). copy citation
| Author | Honoré de Balzac |
|---|---|
| Source | Father Goriot |
| Topic | action life |
| Date | 1835 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Ellen Marriage |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1237/1237-h/1237-h.htm |
Context
“That is what you may call standing by a man; but I myself have a liking for you. I have a mania, too, for devoting myself to some one else. I have done it before. You see, my boy, I live in a loftier sphere than other men do; I look on all actions as means to an end, and the end is all that I look at. What is a man’s life to me? Not that,” he said, and he snapped his thumb-nail against his teeth. “A man, in short, is everything to me, or just nothing at all. Less than nothing if his name happens to be Poiret; you can crush him like a bug, he is flat and he is offensive.”
source
