“The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.”

— Honoré de Balzac, book Le Pere Goriot

Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu'il a été proprement fait.
Part II
A variant, "Behind every great fortune there is a great crime," has appeared as a quotation of Balzac; but it may have originated in a paraphrase in The Oil Barons: Men of Greed and Grandeur (1971) by Richard O'Connor, p. 47: "Balzac maintained that behind every great fortune there is a great crime." It also appears at the beginning of the novel "The Godfather," published two years earlier.
Le Père Goriot (1835)

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Honoré de Balzac157

French writer 1799–1850

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