The sweet consciousness of a common life is ample recompense for all the trouble and suffering—for suffering there is.
 Honoré de Balzac, Letters of Two Brides (1841). copy citation

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Author Honoré de Balzac
Source Letters of Two Brides
Topic suffering consciousness
Date 1841
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by R. S. Scott
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1941/1941-h/1941-h.htm

Context

“What else is there in the world to care about? The father? Why, you could kill him if he dreamed of waking the baby! Just as the child is the world to us, so do we stand alone in the world for the child. The sweet consciousness of a common life is ample recompense for all the trouble and suffering—for suffering there is. Heaven save you, Louise, from ever knowing the maddening agony of a wound which gapes afresh with every pressure of rosy lips, and is so hard to heal—the heaviest tax perhaps imposed on beauty. For know, Louise, and beware!” source