"Show me another pleasure like dinner which comes every day and lasts an hour"
About this Quote
Dinner is Talleyrand’s sly argument for stability in a world built on coups, congresses, and vanishing alliances. A diplomat who survived the Revolution, Napoleon, and the Bourbon restoration didn’t just enjoy pleasure; he collected it like insurance. The line flatters appetite, but its real target is political psychology: most human “pleasures” are either rare (sex, triumph), fleeting (praise), or dangerous (power). Dinner is the cunning counterexample - dependable, socially sanctioned, and repeatable without inviting disaster.
The genius is in the scale. An hour is modest enough to sound reasonable, even virtuous, yet long enough to matter. That proportion makes the quip feel like a life philosophy disguised as small talk. It’s also an argument for ritual as a technology of control. In Talleyrand’s universe, the table isn’t leisure; it’s infrastructure. Meals create predictable time, enforced manners, and a stage where status can be negotiated without armies. You can read it as a defense of the salon and the dining room as parallel institutions to parliament: places where influence is traded under the cover of conviviality.
Context sharpens the irony. Talleyrand helped pioneer modern statecraft, and he’s reminding you that “serious” history often gets decided between courses. The subtext is almost brutal: if you want endurance, don’t chase grand ecstasies. Build your life around pleasures that return on schedule - and invite the right people to share them.
The genius is in the scale. An hour is modest enough to sound reasonable, even virtuous, yet long enough to matter. That proportion makes the quip feel like a life philosophy disguised as small talk. It’s also an argument for ritual as a technology of control. In Talleyrand’s universe, the table isn’t leisure; it’s infrastructure. Meals create predictable time, enforced manners, and a stage where status can be negotiated without armies. You can read it as a defense of the salon and the dining room as parallel institutions to parliament: places where influence is traded under the cover of conviviality.
Context sharpens the irony. Talleyrand helped pioneer modern statecraft, and he’s reminding you that “serious” history often gets decided between courses. The subtext is almost brutal: if you want endurance, don’t chase grand ecstasies. Build your life around pleasures that return on schedule - and invite the right people to share them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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