Equality may be a right, but no power on earth can convert it into fact.
"La Duchesse de Langeais". Essay by Honore de Balzac (1834), published in "Oeuvres completes de H. de Balzac" ("Complete works of Balzac") published by A. Houssiaux (Part II, pp. 111-235), translated by Ellen Marriage, 1855.
