Balzac on the relationship between fortune and crime


Balzac (or Tom Friedman from the New York Times?)

En francais:  Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu’il a été proprement fait.

–Balzac in “Le Père Goriot” (1834)

In English:  The secret of a great fortune made without apparent cause is soon forgotten, if the crime is committed in a respectable way.

Popular translation:  Behind every great fortune is a great theft.

Honoré de Balzac (May 20, 1799 – August 18, 1850 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. Wikipedia

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