Life & Wisdom Quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Prosperity doesn’t reveal virtue; it lubricates it. La Rochefoucauld’s line is a cool dismantling of the compliment we love to pay the successful: “They’re so grounded.” He suggests that moderation in good times is less a moral achievement than a mood made possible by comfort. When the stakes are low, the self can afford to be generous, patient, even principled. What reads as character may just be chemistry: the nervous system unthreatened, the ego uncornered.

The craft is in the phrasing: “effect” and “owing to” are the vocabulary of causation, not praise. He writes like someone tracing a symptom back to its hidden condition. “Smooth and composed temper” sounds like an innate disposition, then he undercuts it by attributing that composure to “the calm of their good fortune.” The subtext is acidic: take away the cushion and watch the temper change. Moderation, in this view, is situational ethics.

Context matters. La Rochefoucauld is a courtly anatomist of motives, writing in 17th-century France where status, patronage, and survival were social arts. His maxims emerge from an environment that rewarded polished self-control while quietly incentivizing vanity, rivalry, and fear. He isn’t denying that people can be moderate; he’s denying that prosperity is a reliable stage for testing it.

The intent is corrective: stop mistaking ease for excellence. If you want to measure temperament, don’t look at the calm sea. Look at the storm.