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The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark.

— François de La Rochefoucauld Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665)

Le plus grand défaut de la pénétration n'est pas de n'aller point jusqu'au but, c'est de le passer.

Original text (French)

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Variants

The greatest fault of a penetrating mind is not to fail to attain the mark but to go beyond it.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: François de La Rochefoucauld (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.