La Rochefoucauld §laroch_313: How is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that ...
Source: François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665) (laroch_313) · external_aligned
How is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person? ["Old men who yet retain the memory of things past, and forget how often they have told them, are most tedious companions."--Montaigne, {Essays, Book I, Chapter IX}.]
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