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:
tricks
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Dark stratagems, and treachery, to relieve
The coward’s wants, were by mankind devis’d.[δόλοι δὲ καὶ σκοτεινὰ μηχανήματα
χρείας ἀνάνδρου φάρμαχ᾽ εὕρηται βροτοῖς.]Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Bellerophon [Βελλεροφῶν], frag. 288 (TGF) (c. 430 BC) [tr. Wodhull (1809)]
(Source)
Nauck frag. 290, Barnes frag. 42, Musgrave frag. 8. (Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:Tricks and dark schemes are mankind's invention as
cowardly remedies against need.
[tr. Collard, Hargreaves, Cropp (1995)]Trickery and devious devices are man’s unmanly means to meet his needs.
[tr. Stevens (2012)]
By and large, people who enjoy teaching animals to roll over will find themselves happier with a dog.
Throw a stick, and the servile dog wheezes and pants and shambles to bring it to you. Do the same before a cat, and he will eye you with coolly polite and somewhat bored amusement.
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) American fabulist [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
“Cats and Dogs” (23 Nov 1926), Leaves (Summer 1937)
(Source)
Reprinted as "Something about Cats" in Something About Cats: And Other Pieces (1949) [ed. Derleth].
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)). Alternate 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)]
