"...exploiters are sometimes duped by their own egotism...the devoted don't always lack happiness. I proved nothing; one proves nothing with stories, not even true ones; but good people have consciences that bolster them, and it's for them above all that I wrote this book, in which so much malice has been perceived. They do me too much honor: I would much rather belong to the poorer class of suckers than the more illustrious one of the jokers. "Notice" (1852) in Horace, translated from French to English by Zack Rogow (1995)"