Desire to appear clever often prevents our becoming so.
[Le désir de paraître habile empêche souvent de le devenir.]
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶199 (1665-1678) [tr. Tancock (1959)]
(Source)
Found in the 1st (1665) ed. In manuscript, it added:... parce qu’on songe plus à le paroître aux autres qu’à être effectivement ce qu’il faut être. [... because we think more about appearing so to others than actually being what we must be.]
The theme of seeming/appearing runs all through La Rochefoucauld's maxims. See also ¶127, ¶134, ¶245, ¶431, ¶457.
(Source (French)). Other translations:The desire to be thought a wise Man, oftentimes hinders ones coming to be really such.
[tr. Stanhope (1694), ¶200]The desire of appearing to be persons of ability often prevents our being so.
[pub. Donaldson (1783), ¶1, ed. Lepoittevin-Lacroix (1797), ¶190]Never are we made so ridiculous by the qualities we have, as by those we affect to have. An affectation of wisdom often prevents our becoming wise.
[ed. Carvill (1835), ¶19]The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.
[ed. Gowens (1851), ¶208]The desire to appear clever often prevents our being so.
[tr. Bund/Friswell (1871), ¶199; tr. Stevens (1939), ¶199]The desire to appear clever often prevents a man from being so.
[tr. FitzGibbon (1957), ¶199]The desire to seem clever often prevents our being so.
[tr. Kronenberger (1959), ¶199]The desire to appear intelligent, often prevents us from actually becoming so.
[tr. Whichello (2016) ¶199]
Quotations about:
seeming
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
“Happy as a king,” iz a libel on happiness, and on the king to.
[“Happy as a king,” is a libel on happiness, and on the king, too.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 156 “Affurisms: Embers on the Harth” (1874)
(Source)
You see, there’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.
Patrick Rothfuss (b. 1973) American author
The Name of the Wind, ch. 92 “The Music That Plays” [Bast] (2007)
(Source)
Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.
[Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Laelius De Amicitia [Laelius on Friendship], ch. 26 / sec. 98 (44 BC)
Common translation. Alternates:
- "For not so many desire to be endowed with virtue itself, as to seem to be so." [tr. Edmonds (1871)]
- "For there are not so many possessed of virtue as there are that desire to seem virtuous." [tr. Peabody (1887)]
- "For many wish not so much to be, as to seem to be, endowed with real virtue." [tr. Falconer (1923)]
I have laughed in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Scarlet Letter, ch. 17 (1850)
