“ Women tend, for some unknown inclination in their nature, to see in a man of talent nothing but his faults, and in a fool only his qualities; they feel great sympathy for the qualities of a fool for they are a perpetual flattery of their own faults, whereas the superior man does not offer them enough delights to compensate for his imperfections. ”
 Honoré de Balzac, The Wild Ass’s Skin (1831). copy citation