marriage cannot rest upon passion as its foundation, nor even upon 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 marriage passion
Date 1841
Language English
Reference
Note Translated by R. S. Scott
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1941/1941-h/1941-h.htm

Context

“You alone here have the right to mourn my death." After a long pause, during which I could only see her through a mist of tears, she continued: "The moral of my death is a cruel one. My dear doctor in petticoats was right; marriage cannot rest upon passion as its foundation, nor even upon love. How fine and noble is your life! keeping always to the one safe road, you give your husband an ever-growing affection; while the passionate eagerness with which I threw myself into wedded life was bound in nature to diminish.” source