"We are all strong enough to bear other men's misfortunes"
About this Quote
A neat piece of cruelty dressed up as common sense, La Rochefoucauld’s line lands because it flatters our self-image while indicting it. Of course we can bear other people’s misfortunes; we bear them with impressive composure. That “strength” is less a virtue than a loophole in empathy: distance masquerading as fortitude.
The intent is diagnostic, not consoling. La Rochefoucauld, the great anatomist of self-interest, is pointing at the ease with which we become stoics when the pain is outsourced. We offer advice, perspective, even moral judgments, all without paying the bodily price of the suffering we’re evaluating. The subtext is that our calm in the face of tragedy often proves nothing about character and everything about proximity. Misfortune, at a safe remove, can even become a stage for our competence: the friend who “handles it well,” the spectator who “keeps it together,” the commentator who turns calamity into a lesson.
Context matters: a 17th-century aristocratic world of salons, court politics, and reputation, where cynicism wasn’t a posture but a survival skill. His maxims aren’t trying to improve you; they’re trying to unmask you. The phrase “other men’s” is doing quiet work, too, implying a social hierarchy of whose suffering counts as real and whose is merely instructive.
It works because it’s compact enough to feel like wisdom, then sharp enough to leave a cut: our vaunted resilience is often just the privilege of not being the one bleeding.
The intent is diagnostic, not consoling. La Rochefoucauld, the great anatomist of self-interest, is pointing at the ease with which we become stoics when the pain is outsourced. We offer advice, perspective, even moral judgments, all without paying the bodily price of the suffering we’re evaluating. The subtext is that our calm in the face of tragedy often proves nothing about character and everything about proximity. Misfortune, at a safe remove, can even become a stage for our competence: the friend who “handles it well,” the spectator who “keeps it together,” the commentator who turns calamity into a lesson.
Context matters: a 17th-century aristocratic world of salons, court politics, and reputation, where cynicism wasn’t a posture but a survival skill. His maxims aren’t trying to improve you; they’re trying to unmask you. The phrase “other men’s” is doing quiet work, too, implying a social hierarchy of whose suffering counts as real and whose is merely instructive.
It works because it’s compact enough to feel like wisdom, then sharp enough to leave a cut: our vaunted resilience is often just the privilege of not being the one bleeding.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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