But reason always cuts a poor figure beside sentiment; the one being essentially restricted, like everything that is positive, while the other is infinite.

[Mais la raison est toujours mesquine auprès du sentiment; l’une est naturellement bornée, comme tout ce qui est positif, et l’autre est infini.]

Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) French novelist, playwright

A Woman of Thirty [La Femme de trente ans], ch. 3 “At Thirty Years” (1842) [tr. Marriage]