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I am looking for the source of the quote

We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves

allegedly by François de La Rochefoucauld.

The only French version I could find was

Nous sommes plus intéressés à faire croire que nous sommes heureux qu’à essayer d’être heureux nous-mêmes.

but I cannot find it in maxims or elsewhere.

Would anyone know where it comes from?

a picture of Rochefoucauld with the English version of the alleged quote

Yulia V
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    If you've read the maxims (and I urge you to!), you'll know this is quintessential Rochefoucault! I would have been shocked if it hadn't been authentic. It would take a scholar to fake it so well. – PatrickT May 30 '21 at 03:03
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    @PatrickT I am reading them actually. Yes, looked authentic, but I am always checking for sources just in case. I could not find one myself, thus the question :) – Yulia V May 30 '21 at 09:23
  • And a great question. He's a wonderful stylist. I can't think of a greater aphorist. In the same league is Oscar Wilde, who is funnier, just as cynical, a tad shallower. More cynical and contemporary is Cioran (not sure if he's been translated). – PatrickT May 30 '21 at 10:30
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    @PatrickT Nietzsche? https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/nietzsches-top-15-aphorisms-for-your-next-existential-crisis – Yulia V May 30 '21 at 11:26
  • Indeed. Cioran's main inspiration. It's never too clear if the humour is intended or not... – PatrickT May 30 '21 at 11:33

1 Answers1

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The version you found on the internet was translated from English back to French. The real quote, which is due either to La Rochefoucault or to the Abbé de Saint-Réal, is:

Nous nous tourmentons moins pour devenir heureux que pour faire croire que nous le sommes.

My translation (as literal as I could grammatically make it):

We torment ourselves less to become happy than to make others believe that we are happy.

This quote can be found in many places on the internet, most often attributed to La Rochefoucauld, but sometimes to the Abbé de Saint-Réal.

The earliest I could find it in Google books is in this 1701 book which quotes it, and attributes it to La Rochefoucauld (1638–1680).

It is in this 1705 edition of La Rochefoucauld's Maxims, where it is the sixth in a list of 50 maxims.

However, here is a link on Google books to a 1722 edition of Oeuvres de M. L'Abbé de Saint-Réal (1633-1692) which contains the exact same list of 50 maxims.

So the list of 50 maxims seems to have been incorporated into editions of La Rochefoucauld's Maxims after his death, but it wasn't in editions published when he was alive (at least, it's not in this edition that Tsundoku found, which is a reproduction of the 1668 edition, and which the editor's note claims is the last one published before La Rochefoucauld died in 1680.)

In conclusion, this maxim is by one of two 17th century writers, and was attributed to both of them in posthumous collections of their work in the 18th century. Which is the real author? I don't know whether it is possible to determine this from the resources we have. If you really want to figure this out, you might get clues by scanning Google books for the other 49 maxims in the list.

Peter Shor
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    I found it in this edition of Réflexions, ou Sentences et maximes morales but not in this one. – Tsundoku May 29 '21 at 18:16
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    @Tsundoku: the same list of 50 maxims is in Les oeuvres de M. L'Abbé de Saint-Réal. This may be a case of 18th-century plagiarism. – Peter Shor May 29 '21 at 18:21
  • @PeterShor, looks more like an error from Google books, because the link is to scans of the Maximes of la Rochefoucauld, not Saint-Réal. – PatrickT May 30 '21 at 03:07
  • @PatrickT: If you go to the link in my answer, here, and scroll up fourteen pages, you will find what is clearly the title page of Les Oeuvres de Saint-Réal. Two pages later, there is a table of contents, two entries of which are Maximes Morales and Quels Livres il est permis de critiquer. As far as I can tell from Google, Rochefoucauld never wrote anything with that latter title. – Peter Shor May 30 '21 at 11:00
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    @PeterShor, Oh I see, you're right. Very interesting. Not an error by Google books. But it does look out of place: these Maxims are all from La Rochefoucauld. A few paragraphs earlier l'abbé generously cites Pascal, but here these maxims are inserted without attribution. They were taken out of Volume 2 of the 1745 edition (rangée dans un meilleur ordre et augmentée) (or moved, couldn't find them). In the edition of 1804 they appear as an appendix, still without attribution. Very curious indeed. Well spotted! – PatrickT May 30 '21 at 11:30
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    @PatrickT: I'm going to agree that it's very likely La Rochefoucauld wrote that list of fifty maxims, and it was incorporated by mistake into Saint-Réal's collected works after his death, but I don't see that there's any definitive proof of this that would hold up in a court of law. – Peter Shor May 31 '21 at 12:58
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    Indeed. Fascinating exchange on this topic here (in French): https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/concordance-des-temps/le-plagiat-tres-ancien – PatrickT Jun 01 '21 at 02:40