"We should expect the best and the worst of mankind, as from the weather"
About this Quote
Luc de Clapiers smuggles a hard little realism into a sentence that sounds almost soothing. Comparing mankind to the weather is a rhetorical trick: it strips human behavior of its flattering exceptionality. You do not take a storm personally; you prepare for it, endure it, and move on. In that move, the line punctures the Enlightenment-era temptation to treat people as improvable machines that will run smoothly once reason is properly installed. He is not denying reason; he is denying the fantasy of control.
The verb "expect" is the hinge. Not "hope", not "demand", not "trust" - expect. Expectation is a discipline, an emotional posture that trades innocence for readiness. The subtext is moral hygiene: if you anticipate both decency and betrayal, you are less likely to be seduced by charisma, less shocked by cruelty, less tempted to build political systems that assume perpetual virtue. It is cynicism with guardrails.
The weather analogy also contains a quiet warning about attribution. We love to narrate the worst in people as personal evil and the best as a sign of progress. Clapiers suggests a messier continuity: patterns, seasons, fronts moving through a population. That does not excuse harm; it reframes it as something institutions must be designed around, not something sermons can wish away.
Written in a century flirting with rational utopias and salon optimism, the line reads like a corrective whispered from the edge of polite society: plan for sunshine, keep an umbrella, and stop being surprised that humans are atmospheric.
The verb "expect" is the hinge. Not "hope", not "demand", not "trust" - expect. Expectation is a discipline, an emotional posture that trades innocence for readiness. The subtext is moral hygiene: if you anticipate both decency and betrayal, you are less likely to be seduced by charisma, less shocked by cruelty, less tempted to build political systems that assume perpetual virtue. It is cynicism with guardrails.
The weather analogy also contains a quiet warning about attribution. We love to narrate the worst in people as personal evil and the best as a sign of progress. Clapiers suggests a messier continuity: patterns, seasons, fronts moving through a population. That does not excuse harm; it reframes it as something institutions must be designed around, not something sermons can wish away.
Written in a century flirting with rational utopias and salon optimism, the line reads like a corrective whispered from the edge of polite society: plan for sunshine, keep an umbrella, and stop being surprised that humans are atmospheric.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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