If affection be inexhaustible, it is not so with love
 Honoré de Balzac, Letters of Two Brides (1841). copy citation

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

Context

“but is it not too close an intimacy which provokes rupture? My aim is to give him, in the very interest of his happiness, many occupations, which will all serve as distractions to his love; and this is not the reasoning of passion. If affection be inexhaustible, it is not so with love: the task, therefore, of a woman—truly no light one—is to spread it out thriftily over a lifetime. At the risk of exciting your disgust, I must tell you that I persist in the principles I have adopted, and hold myself both heroic and generous in so doing.” source