le mieux est l'ennemi du bien

23:45 Jan 30, 2009 

Allen's Dictionary of English Phrases (Penguin reference library):

"The best is the enemy of the good - people or achievements that are good are made to seem inadequate by those that are even more outstanding. The phrase is attested earlier (18th cent.) in French as le mieux est l'ennemi du bien, and in Italian (quoted by Voltaire) as il meglio e l'inimico del bene. [...]"

23:07 Jan 20, 2009 

Literary quotations are interpreted / translated in the context of the entire piece from which they are extracted, and when translated like that, their sense becomes very clear, never vague.

So, who read La Bégueule here ?

Also, we haven't been told if this will be used as a quotation or a proverb, because it also grew into an independent proverb over time.

An excerpt :

La Bégueule

Conte moral
Voltaire



Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien
Dit que le mieux est l’ennemi du bien ;
Non qu’on ne puisse augmenter en prudence,
En bonté d’âme, en talents, en science ;
Cherchons le mieux sur ces chapitres-là ;
Partout ailleurs évitons la chimère.
Dans son état, heureux qui peut se plaire,
Vivre à sa place, et garder ce qu’il a !
La belle Arsène en est la preuve claire.
Elle était jeune : elle avait à Paris
Un tendre époux empressé de complaire

22:22 Jan 20, 2009 

but normally it's understood as meaning "leave well alone" or something along those lines.

19:25 Jan 20, 2009 

It is better to be satisfied with " optimum, something ideal " , than to strive for better which you cannot handle. " The better " may be " too much " to handle and therefore the better can turn into the worse.

optimum = it is not either good or bad or better, it is simply something that suits you perfectly, although it is not "the best" by objective standards.

Is this interpretation complicated enough ? :)

I believe that the sense of " the good" here is " one's own optimum "

Btw, isn't there an official authorized literary translation of this famous Voltaire's quotation ?

19:21 Jan 20, 2009 

Just read http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Bégueule ;-).<BR><BR>It's very short, btw.

See also:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire (search for 'enemy')
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

19:00 Jan 20, 2009 

Did he mean you should leave something that is already working alone (cf Matthew's suggestion) or did he mean that you should do something and be satisfied with a less than perfect solution because otherwise striving for perfection may result in nothing being achieved (my suggestion)? Or did he perhaps mean both?