{"id": "card_n_b232a46a129f", "kind": "note", "title": "La Rochefoucauld §laroch_138: A man would rather say evil of himself than say nothing.", "body": "A man would rather say evil of himself than say nothing. [\"Montaigne's vanity led him to talk perpetually of himself, and as often happens to vain men, he would rather talk of his own failings than of any foreign subject.\"-- Hallam, Literature Of Europe.]", "source": {"label": "François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665)", "url": "/canon.html?ref=larochefoucauld_laroch_138", "ref": "laroch_138", "authority_tier": "external_aligned"}, "shelf": "classics", "box": "larochefoucauld_maxims", "bands": ["larochefoucauld", "maxims", "moralist", "post_christian"], "connections": [{"to_card_id": "card_n_b5d451e18688", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}, {"to_card_id": "card_n_b1a8b04f2484", "relationship": "same_section", "origin": "nesting_2026_06_12"}], "author": "engine", "created_at": "2026-05-19T13:20:58.931994+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-05-19T13:20:58.932002+00:00", "visibility": "public", "lifecycle_stage": "public", "volatility": "permanent", "metrics": {"paperclips_count": 0, "helpful_count": 0, "not_helpful_count": 0, "cite_count": 0, "walks_through_count": 0, "flagged_count": 0}, "source_hash": "97a3abb94ea748ea67b5e9a62c3b82a0b731de4ff2de88d8fd3429198a098085", "witnesses": [{"class": "manuscript_tradition", "label": "First edition, Paris 1665 — Barbin imprint", "ref": "LR-1665"}, {"class": "critical_edition", "label": "Pleiade edition — Truchet (Gallimard, 1964)", "ref": "Pleiade-LR"}, {"class": "translation", "label": "Tancock translation (Penguin Classics, 1959)", "ref": "Tancock-1959"}, {"class": "republication", "label": "Project Gutenberg — Maxims", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9105", "ref": "PG-9105"}, {"class": "republication", "label": "Internet Archive — multiple editions", "url": "https://archive.org/search?query=la+rochefoucauld+maxims", "ref": "IA-LR"}], "witness_status": "passed", "witness_status_reason": "5 witnesses across 4 independence classes: ['critical_edition', 'manuscript_tradition', 'republication', 'translation']", "surface": "secular"}