# le mieux est l'ennemi du bien



## carolineR

To contradict the "the-devil-is-in-the-detail"-thread, I would like to know if there is an equivalent in Englist to the saying "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" which roughly means the opposite ?

Moderator note:
Several thread asking exactly the same question have been merged into this one.


----------



## viera

Leave well enough alone.  or
Less is more.


----------



## NYCPrincesse

After a google search I found, worse is better.  Check out this link: http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html


----------



## polaire

carolineR said:
			
		

> To contradict the "the-devil-is-in-the-detail"-thread, I would like to know if there is an equivalent in Englist to the saying "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" which roughly means the opposite ?


There sure is. 

"The best is the enemy of the good."

An excellent expression, in either language.

Of course you understand what it means, carolineR, but for the benefit of those who don't:  A stubborn insistence on ideals sometimes stymies* progress of any kind.

Or, to describe it as the opposite of "the devil is in the details," as you suggested, an exaggerated concern with perfecting all of the details can result in the project not being completed.

Sometimes it's hard to figure out which rule to apply, "The devil is in the details" or "The best is the enemy of the good."  

*Thwarts, hinders, prevents, stalls.


----------



## carolineR

Thank you Polaire, and everybody


----------



## Datawolf

Bonjour,

Mon premier post pour cette question : existe-t-il un idiom qui traduise "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien" ? 

D'avance merci

The Datawolf


----------



## DearPrudence

Bonjour et bienvenue sur le forum. 

Il y a déjà eu des questions sur le sujet
[links removed because threads are now merged] 

Personnellement j'aime bien:
*"If it's not broken, don't fix it"*


----------



## Old Novice

The expression I've heard and used for years, not precisely replicated in DearPrudence's threads (at least in a quick read of them) is

"The perfect is the enemy of the good."

I know many people who say it this way, to mean that trying to perfect something, which is never possible (since perfection is impossible), can lead to much worse outcomes than simply accepting a good, and timely, solution.


----------



## david314

viera said:


> *Leave well enough alone*.


 This is the great Will Durant's translation, too. 



DearPrudence said:


> Personnellement j'aime bien:
> *"If it's not broken, don't fix it"*


 The simple folk say: " If it *ain't broke* ... "


----------



## bloomiegirl

polaire said:


> [...] "The best is the enemy of the good."


This sounds exactly right to me, and it's as close to the original French as can be.


----------



## freesia

Bonjour à tous!

Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire pour cette expression: 'Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien'?  

Merci mille fois!


----------



## Kxking

It means that sometimes willing to improve something while its quality is sufficient (bien) would turn out to make it worse.


----------



## Arrius

Said by Voltaire, and translated by
*The better is the enemy of the good or The perfect is the enemy of the good.*
Meaning that what has been appreciated as good hitherto starts to seem mediocre when something better appears*.*
 An example would be the way Salieri's music was considered as excellent until the genius Mozart joined the members of the same royal court and dazzled them with his virtuosity.


----------



## Kxking

Arrius: It's a saying that does not have this meaning. Have a look at this:
http://www.linternaute.com/proverbe/694/le-mieux-est-l-ennemi-du-bien/


----------



## Arrius

OK, then it's the equivalent of English "*Let well alone*".


----------



## broglet

Indeed so Arrius - or don't gild the lily


----------



## Agent Literary

Or, "If it isn't / ain't broke(n), don't fix it."


----------



## broglet

better the devil you know ...


----------



## akaAJ

In AE, "The best is the enemy of the good" means, "Don't waste time and opportunities seeking perfection;  seek a workable solution and go for it".  In Congress this might mean "Accept a compromise that gets you most of what you want, that can pass, rather than  insisting on on an ideal bill that will never pass."  It's not really like the suggestions above.


----------



## freesia

J'ai bien compris cette expression après vos explications. Merci beaucoup!!!


----------



## Meyer Wolfsheim

Hello everyone,
                     I understand that the French proverb "Le mieux est l'ennemi de bien" translates to "Let well enough alone."  But I am wondering that the proverb makes sense idiomatically and wants to say "it is when the good do their best that things go wrong", as it literrally translates to "the best is the enemy of the well/good."  It would make sense, as in English the proverb means to say that not everything should be done to the hilt (another idiom ).  Please let me know if my understanding of the proverb is correct.


----------



## nom d'utilisateur

that means when you already did something good, and you try to do it better, it usually go wrong instead.


----------



## WordRef1

It's like when we used to watch television with a rabbit ear antenna and the reception was pretty good, but my dad had to try to make it even better and would ruin the reception while he was fiddling with it and sometimes leave it worse than it was to begin with. When he got up to mess with it, I should have said "non! Le mieux est l'ennemi de bien." except, of course, that wouldn't have stopped him.


----------



## alain larochelle

Je souscrit à l'équivalent _Leave well − enough − alone_.
But I think the exact _literal_ rendering is :: The _better_ is the enemy of the _well_. -And the the best is worst! 
Il est vrai qu'il y a deux miroitements ou flottements,  de _best_ à _better_: _Le mieux_... puis de _well_ à _good_: ..._du bien_. Ceux-ci font aussi effet en français, et Voltaire le poète devait en être conscient. Dans la maxime, _faire __mieux_ et _faire __bien_ me semblent sous-entendus.


----------



## bloomiegirl

For a literal rendering, I would still stick with polaire's "The best is the enemy of the good" (see post #4, from Jun 20, 2006). Or one might say "Perfection is the enemy of the good." (Try googling it; I got nearly half a million hits, so it's quite idiomatic.)

Or does it mean, instead, "Leave well enough alone," which is more akin to "if it aint broke, don't fix it"? 

Whereas the meaning, I think, is, don't spoil things by persisting in trying to make things perfect. 
But I suppose I could be wrong.


----------



## alain larochelle

Yes it's quite idiomatic indeed and one would need to use that translation in many contexts but, as is I understand it, a literal translation  is not meant to be used as such, it's a stepping stone to the _right-translation-in-context_, serving to clarify matters. 
 But sometimes it is the best trans., perhaps only slightly bent, adapted.

Here it seems _The best is the enemy of the good_ is an historical, imperfect translation, and that may complexify the task... Talking about _perfection_ would have been yet another historical reworking of the original. If it's really all Voltaire's fault, maybe he picked up that idea somewhere else. Even in England... !?
As for _Leave well alone_ it looks like the real idiomatic voice − if it weren't for Voltaire. 
Now I would ask myself how I would translate that in French, what I would say spontaneously to express nearly the same idea ? Etc.

> End of brainstorm... well is enough.


----------



## bloomiegirl

Thank you very much, Alain, for your additional thoughts.   And...  ah, for context!


----------



## akaAJ

So, just to clarify things in my own mind, it is not really "le mieux" ("bien", "mieux", "le mieux"), but all three elements are functioning as nouns: Le "mieux" est l'ennemi du "bien" translates literally (expansively) as "Trying to do it better is a threat to doing it well", in which case "Leave well enough alone" is exact.  The English "The best is the enemy of the good", which is quite current, is thus significantly different, and, in the context of my [much] earlier comment, means "Trying to get the ideal can threaten getting something good [enough, given the situation]."  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is not the equivalent of either, since it refers to something which is _already_ functioning well [enough].

Holiday greetings to one and all.


----------



## L'Embrouilleur

I really disagree with most of what's been said on this thread. The only English expression that I'm familiar with that seems similar to the French expression is _The perfect is the enemy of the good. _It simply implies that the normative _good _is not, in fact, "good" for those whose standard is perfection. I always read into the expression an element of "anti-perfectionism", and it does denote a conflict between the two standards.
As to _The devil is in the details, _I don't think it's related at all to the other expression. It simply means that overly simplified notions of complex things are to be avoided.


----------



## akaAJ

While I can't deny that "The perfect is the enemy of the good" can fit, in at least one of the contexts (see "ideal" above), I have to say I don't recall ever having heard it, whereas "The best is the enemy of the good" is quite frequent.

As to "The devil is in the details", it is usually heard with respect to agreements (contracts or legislation, and especially "agreements in principle") that may look good on the surface or in the preamble, but which may (or may not) be substantially if not entirely negated by specific provisions -- see also "poison pill".


----------



## JeanDeSponde

akaAJ said:


> ...Le "mieux" est  l'ennemi du "bien" translates  literally (expansively) as "Trying to do  it better is a threat to doing  it well", in which case "Leave well  enough alone" is exact.


Well - _Trying to do it better is a threat to doing  it well_ seems to  imply that the "good thing" has not been done yet ("a threat to doing it  well"), while the expression is usually meant as "it is a good thing as it is; trying to make it better might make it worse".
The FreeDic is hinting at a slight difference between _leave well  enough alone_ and _best is the enemy of the good_:
LWEA would be "to allow something to stay as it is because doing more would not improve it" - indeed perfect for _le mieux..._, as akaArrJ said, as this is _improving what is already there_.
BITEOTG would be "If you are too ambitious and try to make something better than you are capable of, you may ruin it"; this means that your ambition should not exceed your means - a different view.



L'Embrouilleur said:


> The only English expression that I'm familiar with that seems similar to the French expression is _The perfect is the enemy of the good. _


The point raised by akaArrJ is that "seems similar" is different from "is an exact translation".
And, though I'm French, I can't pretend being familiar with every French expression.
My grandfather used to say _n'essaie pas d'améliorer le soc_: the ploughshare, as it is, is a time-proven thing, has been slowly improved over hundreds of generations; don't think you can easily improve good things, while you'll probably make them worse...


----------

