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280 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1835
Our heart is a treasury; if you spend all its wealth at once you are ruined. We find it as difficult to forgive a person for displaying his feelings in all its nakedness as we do to forgive a man for being penniless.
The more cold-blooded your calculations, the further you will go. Strike ruthlessly; you will be feared. Men and women for you must be nothing more than post-horses; take a fresh relay, and leave the last to drop by the roadside; in this way you will reach the goal of your ambition.
鈥濻ubiectul lui Mo葯 Goriot - un b膬tr卯n cumsecade - pensiune burghez膬 - 600 de franci rent膬 - care s-a despuiat de toate pentru fiicele sale, care au, fiecare, 50.000 de franci rent膬, moare ca un c卯ine鈥�.
鈥灻巒 ciuda 卯nf膬牛i艧膬rii lui de om cumsecade, avea un fel de a te privi, ad卯nc 艧i ne卯nduplecat, care st卯rnea at卯ta team膬, 卯nc卯t datornicii lui ar fi 卯nfruntat mai degrab膬 primejdia mor牛ii dec卯t pe aceea de a nu-i 卯napoia banii 卯mprumuta牛i. Iar felul cum zv卯rlea scuipatul dintr-o 牛卯艧nitur膬, ar膬ta c膬 are o fire rece 艧i neclintit膬, care nu s-ar fi dat 卯napoi nici de la o crim膬 ca s膬 ias膬 dintr-o 卯ncurc膬tur膬鈥�.
鈥溾€� the structure of the income and wealth hierarchies in nineteenth-century France was such that the standard of living the wealthiest French people could attain greatly exceeded that to which one could aspire on the basis of income from labor alone. Under such conditions, why work? And why behave morally at all? Since social inequality was in itself immoral and unjustified, why not be thoroughly immoral and appropriate capital by whatever means are available?鈥�
He saw society as an ocean of mire into which one had only to dip a toe to be buried in it up to the neck.
'Fifty thousand young men in the same position as you are all trying to solve the problem of how to get rich quick. You are just one of all that number. Imagine the efforts that will demand and how bitter the struggle will be. You'll have to devour each other like crabs in a pot, since there aren't fifty thousand jobs going. Do you know the way to get on here? Through brilliant intelligence or skilful corruption. Either plough into the mass of mankind like a cannonball, or infiltrate them like a plague. It's no good being honest. Men yield to the power of intelligence, though they hate it and try to decry it, because it takes but does not share. But they yield if it is persistent. In a word they kneel before it in worship once they have failed to bury it in mud. Corruption thrives, talent is rare, so corruption is the weapon of mediocre majority, and you will feel it pricking you wherever you go. You will see women whose husbands earn sixty thousand francs all told spending more than ten thousand on clothes. You will see clerks on twelve hundred a year buying land. You will see women selling themselves so that they can ride in a carriage with the son of a peer of the realm and go bowling off to Longchamp down the middle of the road. You have seen that poor old ninny P猫re Goriot obliged to pay off the bill of exchange endorsed by his daughter, whose husband has an income of fifty thousand a year. I defy you to go two steps in Paris without running across some diabolical fiddle.'