Is "Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking" really by François de La Rochefoucauld?

Who really said it

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking

Written by François de La Rochefoucauld 1613–1680 · French writer and moralist

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This is maxim 26 in the English translation by J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, published in 1871. The exact English wording belongs to that translation of La Rochefoucauld, rather than to the seventeenth-century French text.

Last verified 9 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking” — François de La Rochefoucauld

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Provenance

The source

Work: Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Location: Maxim 26
Translation: J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell, 1871
Original language: French

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking.

Literal wording in the fetched 1871 Willis Bund and Friswell translation; line breaks have been joined.

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How we verified this

The 1871 translated edition ↗ contains this exact wording at maxim 26. Its title page identifies both translators and the publication year.
Wikiquote’s sourced La Rochefoucauld collection ↗ provides a specialist cross-check on the maxim tradition; the quoted English wording here is pinned to the primary translated edition.

Public domain

This exact English wording is in the 1871 Willis Bund and Friswell translation, whose title page is reproduced in the fetched edition. That pre-1931 English publication is public domain in the United States.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it mattered

The comparison of sunlight and death presents the difficulty of facing mortality directly.

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Mortality Courage

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The author

About François de La Rochefoucauld

François de La Rochefoucauld

1613–1680 · French writer and moralist

French author of maxims and memoirs. His concise reflections examine self-interest, appearances and the motives behind social behaviour.

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The primary source (Chicago)

La Rochefoucauld, François de. Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims. Translated by J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell. London, 1871. Maxim 26.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking’?” Last verified 9 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/neither-the-sun-nor-death-can-be-looked-at-without-winking/

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