Tricks and Treachery are the Practice of Fools, that have not Wit enough to be honest.
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1740 ed.)
(Source)
Borrowed without attribution from La Rochefoucauld (1665).
Quotations about:
guile
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Tricks and Treachery are the practice of Fools that have not Wit enough to be Honest.
[Les finesses et les trahisons ne viennent que de manque d’habileté.]
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶126 (1665-1678) [tr. Stanhope (1694), ¶127]
(Source)
Present in the 1st (1665) edition. A 1665 variant reads:Si on étoit toujours assez habile, on ne ferait jamais de finesses ni de trahisons.
[If one were sufficiently able, one would never do tricks or treasons]
Borrowed by Franklin (1740).(Source (French)). Other translations:Cunning and treachery proceed from want of capacity.
[pub. Donaldson (1783), ¶80; ed. Lepoittevin-Lacroix (1797), ¶122]Cunning and treachery proceed often from want of capacity.
[ed. Carvill (1835), ¶68]Treacheries and acts of artifice only originate in the want of ability.
[ed. Gowens (1851), ¶129]Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.
[tr. Bund/Friswell (1871), ¶126]Trickery and treachery are a mark of stupidity.
[tr. Heard (1917), ¶126]Guile and treachery are merely the result of want of talent.
[tr. Stevens (1939), ¶126]Cunning and treachery come solely from a lack of skill.
[tr. FitzGibbon (1957), ¶126]Tricks and treachery are merely proof of lack of skill.
[tr. Kronenberger (1959), ¶126]Intrigues and treasons simply come from lack of adroitness.
[tr. Tancock (1959), ¶126]Cunning and treachery are given rise to by mere incompetence.
[tr. Whichello (2016)]
