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Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

— Honoré de Balzac Letters of Two Brides (1841)

La politesse cache très-imparfaitement l’égoïsme général.

Original text (French)

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Notes from Wikiquote

Part I, ch. VII

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Honoré de Balzac (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.