La Rochefoucauld §laroch_087: Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other.
Source: François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665) (laroch_087) · external_aligned
Men would not live long in society were they not the dupes of each other. [A maxim, adds Aime Martin, "Which may enter into the code of a vulgar rogue, but one is astonished to find it in a moral treatise." Yet we have scriptural authority for it: "Deceiving and being deceived."--2 TIM. iii. 13.]
Witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15)
- manuscript_tradition: First edition, Paris 1665 — Barbin imprint
- critical_edition: Pleiade edition — Truchet (Gallimard, 1964)
- translation: Tancock translation (Penguin Classics, 1959)
- republication: Project Gutenberg — Maxims
- republication: Internet Archive — multiple editions