Honore de Balzac Quotes
This surface good-nature which captivates a new acquaintance and is no bar to treachery, which knows no scruple and is never at fault for an excuse, which makes an outcry at the wound which it condones, is one of the most distinctive features of the journalist. This camaraderie (the word is a stroke of genius) corrodes the noblest minds; it eats into their pride like rust, kills the germ of great deeds, and lends a sanction to moral cowardice.
Balzac, Honoré de. Lost Illusions. Translated by Ellen Marriage, J. M. Dent, 1897, p. 284.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
In most of American history, population has moved from the rural areas of the country to the cities. After WWII there was a movement from the rural areas to the suburbs as well as the cuties and movement from the cities to the suburbs. The assumption that the schools were not as good in the cities would be challenged by many and in the next 30 years, there was much educational reform in the cities and they had the best schools in the country. Until the movement to the suburbs, the educational attainment of city children was (and is today) much better than that of rural children. Dickernan and many others could not understand the movement to the cities because there was vice in the cities. They rarely considered the social, cultural and economic advantages of cities and generally assumed that people—especially children—could not resist the temptation of vice in the immediate vicinity.
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is generally viewed as his magnum opus.
