Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections for their daydreams, and put their trust in him.
 • Ch. I: Early Mistakes
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Les jeunes filles se créent souvent de nobles, de ravissantes images, des figures tout idéales, et se forgent des idées chimériques sur les hommes, sur les sentiments, sur le monde ; puis elles attribuent innocemment à un caractère les perfections qu'elles ont rêvées, et s'y confient.

— Girls on Honoré de Balzac

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Les jeunes filles se créent souvent de nobles, de ravissantes images, des figures tout idéales, et se forgent des idées chimériques sur les hommes, sur les sentiments, sur le monde ; puis elles attribuent innocemment à un caractère les perfections qu'elles ont rêvées, et s'y confient." in the context of "Girls are apt to imagine noble and enchanting and totally imaginary figures in their own minds; they have fanciful extravagant ideas about men, and sentiment, and life; and then they innocently endow somebody or other with all the perfections for their daydreams, and put their trust in him.
 • Ch. I: Early Mistakes" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Honoré de Balzac" (Quotes, A Woman of Thirty (1842)) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Girls

About Girls

A girl is a young female human usually a child or an adolescent. When a girl becomes an adult, she is accurately described as a woman. However, the term girl is also used for other meanings, including young woman, and is sometimes used as a synonym for daughter, or girlfriend. Girl may also be a term of endearment used by an adult, usually a woman, to designate adult female friends.