Aging & Wisdom Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Advice, in La Rochefoucauld's hands, is less a gift than a confession of diminished leverage. The line lands because it refuses the flattering myth that wisdom naturally ripens into generosity. Instead, it frames "good advice" as what remains when the more persuasive form of teaching - scandalous vitality, risk, the thrill of getting away with it - is no longer available. The old can preach because they can't perform.

The subtext is classic La Rochefoucauld: moral language is often a disguise for self-interest. "Too old to set a bad example" isn't just about aching knees or faded charms; it's about the loss of social power. When you're no longer a credible model of transgression, you pivot to respectability. The advice becomes a way to stay relevant, to keep a hand on the wheel of younger people's choices, to retroactively launder your own misbehavior into "experience". It's also a sly jab at listeners: we claim to want counsel, but we learn faster from the glamorous mistakes of people who can still afford them.

Context matters. La Rochefoucauld wrote in the salon culture of 17th-century France, where manners were strategy and virtue was as much performance as principle. His Maxims are weapons-grade realism: a courtier's understanding that ethics often follows appetite, not the other way around. The joke cuts because it points to an uncomfortable continuity across ages: morality is frequently the story we tell once the fun becomes impractical.