La Rochefoucauld §laroch_065: There is no praise we have not lavished upon Prudence; and yet she cannot ass...
Source: François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665) (laroch_065) · external_aligned
There is no praise we have not lavished upon Prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us the most trifling event. [The author corrected this maxim several times, in 1665 it is No. 75; 1666, No. 66; 1671-5, No. 65; in the last edition it stands as at present. In the first he quotes Juvenal, Sat. X., line 315. " Nullum numen habes si sit Prudentia, nos te; Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus." Applying to Prudence what Juvenal does to Fortune, and with much greater force.]
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