La Rochefoucauld §laroch_024: When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfor...
Source: François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665) (laroch_024) · external_aligned
When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition, and not by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like other men. [Both these maxims have been rewritten and made conciser by the author; the variations are not worth quoting.]
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