Life & Wisdom Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Reason, for La Rochefoucauld, is not a lucky coin you pick up in the street; it's a practiced palate. The line draws a ruthless distinction between arriving at the right conclusion and being the kind of person who can reliably get there. In a culture that loves outcomes, he insists on method and temperament: reason as competence, not coincidence.

The phrasing is surgical. "Stumbles" humiliates the accidental truth-teller, turning correctness into clumsiness. Then he pivots to a more aristocratic ideal: "knows it", "can judge it", "has a true taste for it". That last clause is the tell. Reason isn't merely logical procedure; it's discernment, a cultivated sensibility. He treats rationality less like a rulebook and more like connoisseurship, implying that some people can mimic reason (repeat an argument, land 'the right take') without actually possessing the internal habits that make reason durable under pressure.

The subtext is a quiet attack on social performance. Seventeenth-century French court life rewarded poise, rhetoric, and strategic self-presentation; La Rochefoucauld made his name puncturing those masks with maxims that assume self-interest and vanity sit behind most virtue. Here, he warns against mistaking polished talk or one-off accuracy for genuine rational character. To "pass for" a man of reason is already suspect: reason can be a costume. His intent is corrective and a little cruel - don't applaud the accidental hit; trust the person whose mind can taste error and reject it.