“ If the present is cold and bare and poverty-stricken, the blue distant future is rich and splendid; most great men have known the vicissitudes which depress but cannot overwhelm me. ”
Honoré de Balzac, Lost Illusions (1843). copy citation
| Author | Honoré de Balzac |
|---|---|
| Source | Lost Illusions |
| Topic | poverty future |
| Date | 1843 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Ellen Marriage |
| Weblink | https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13159/pg13159.html |
Context
“So my two hundred and forty francs ought to last me for the first four months. Between now and then I shall have sold The Archer of Charles IX. and the Marguerites no doubt. Do not be in the least uneasy on my account. If the present is cold and bare and poverty-stricken, the blue distant future is rich and splendid; most great men have known the vicissitudes which depress but cannot overwhelm me.
"Plautus, the great comic Latin poet, was once a miller's lad. Machiavelli wrote The Prince at night, and by day was a common working-man like any one else; and more than all, the great Cervantes, who lost an arm at the battle of Lepanto, and helped to win that famous day, was called a 'base-born, handless dotard' by the scribblers of his day;”
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