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Updated: June 8, 2025
Had it been possible for him to see what I have done, he would have detected all my sins, both of omission and of commission, and I like to imagine that he would have used some such consoling words as these: "Well, never mind; one cannot have everything; and, after all, 'Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien."
'Excellence! he wrote, 'J'ai envoye deux lettres, sans avoir recu une reponse de votre excellence. ... Excellence! j'ai me battu 27 FOIS pour le gouvernement contre l'ennemi on m'a feri deux fois, et j'ai rien fait contre l'honneur rien de chose qui doit empeche votre excellence de m'ecrir une reponse que je sais quoi faire. JE VOUS PRIE, Excellence, de m'honore avec une reponse.
If words are piled up beyond this point they make the thought that is being communicated more and more obscure. To hit that point is the problem of style and a matter of discernment; for every superfluous word prevents its purpose being carried out. Voltaire means this when he says: l'adjectif est l'ennemi du substantif.
"I know what these gentlemen think; I would like to talk to some of the others, those who think 'le clericalism c'est l'ennemi, and who are firmly convinced that the soutane serves as a cloak for all sorts of underhand and unpatriotic dealings; I can only see them abroad, never in Rome." He would have talked to them quite easily.
"Le mieux," says a French proverb, "est l'ennemi du bien," and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she put them out at compound interest until they amounted to seventy-seven.
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, is a very favourite maxim of mine. Perhaps, as this is one of my great undertakings, it is more owing to you, than to any other motive. I know you will laugh at me, for saying so, but I really believe it. I said a few words, too, upon your Morpeth business, which encouraged me perhaps to do afterwards, what I did with respect to Mr. Oliver's motion.
But 'Vive l'ennemi! say I: whoever may suffer by such measures, Captain Rock, at least, will prosper. "And such was the result at the period of which I am speaking. The rejection of a petition, so humble and so reasonable, was followed, as a matter of course, by one of those daring rebellions into which the revenge of an insulted people naturally breaks forth.
Tel on voit cet oiseau, qui porte le tonnere, Blessé par un serpent élancé de la terre; Il s'envole, il entraine au sejour azuré L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entouré.
Several writers say that the English engineer Bastide tried to teach them discretion; but this could hardly be, for Bastide, whose station was Annapolis, did not reach Louisbourg till the 5th of June, when the batteries were finished and the siege was nearly ended. "L'ennemi ne nous attaquoit point dans les formes, et ne pratiquoit point aucun retranchement pour se couvrir."
This agrees with the opinion expressed by Goethe in the Elective Affinities, and there put into the mouth of Mittler the man who is always trying to make other people happy: To desire to get rid of an evil is a definite object, but to desire a better fortune than one has is blind folly. The same truth is contained in that fine French proverb: le mieux est l'ennemi du bien leave well alone.
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