No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain.
Source: Tremendous Trifles, Humanity: an Interlude (1909).
-- G K Chesterton, (May 29 1874-1936), English essayist, novelist, journalist, poet; He is noted for the detective series with sleuth Father Brown.