"Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?"
About this Quote
Memory, La Rochefoucauld suggests, isn’t a faithful archive; it’s a vanity machine with selective filing. The line lands because it flips the usual complaint about forgetfulness. We don’t just fail to remember important things - we remember the petty ones with obsessive clarity. What we can’t recall is the socially damning part: how many times we’ve already performed that memory for the same audience.
The intent is less about cognition than about self-regard. The “least triviality” survives because it flatters our sense of being the main character in our own anecdotal theater. Repeating the story isn’t an accident; it’s an indulgence. The missing recollection - having told it “to the same person” - exposes the narcissism baked into conversation: we chase the pleasure of being listened to, not the ethics of listening back. That small second clause is the blade. It implicates not only the speaker’s ego, but the listener’s quiet burden: politeness becomes a tax paid on someone else’s self-importance.
Context matters. As a 17th-century moralist steeped in court society, La Rochefoucauld wrote for a world where reputation was currency and social interaction was a strategic art. His maxims thrive on the gap between how people present themselves (charming, attentive, original) and how they actually operate (self-serving, forgetful of others). The wit is dry but surgical: he’s not accusing us of lying. He’s pointing out something worse - we’re sincere, and still insufferable.
The intent is less about cognition than about self-regard. The “least triviality” survives because it flatters our sense of being the main character in our own anecdotal theater. Repeating the story isn’t an accident; it’s an indulgence. The missing recollection - having told it “to the same person” - exposes the narcissism baked into conversation: we chase the pleasure of being listened to, not the ethics of listening back. That small second clause is the blade. It implicates not only the speaker’s ego, but the listener’s quiet burden: politeness becomes a tax paid on someone else’s self-importance.
Context matters. As a 17th-century moralist steeped in court society, La Rochefoucauld wrote for a world where reputation was currency and social interaction was a strategic art. His maxims thrive on the gap between how people present themselves (charming, attentive, original) and how they actually operate (self-serving, forgetful of others). The wit is dry but surgical: he’s not accusing us of lying. He’s pointing out something worse - we’re sincere, and still insufferable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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