Like in the human heart one generation of passions follows another. Collected maxims and other reflections, 2008, 400 pages. Hopefully they will give you a taste of his style, as well as insights on how to more deftly navigate a world that still remarkably resembles the machinations of a french royal court. This edition includes the 504 maxims of the definitive, fifth edition of 1678, along with 7 other maxims which were either withdrawn from earlier editions or published posthumously. Book from the collections of university of michigan language english.
The translation, the first to appear in forty years, is completely new and aims unlike all. Holland the translators preface the preface to the reader. It never rests, or fixes any where from home, and, if for a little while it dwell upon some other thing, tis only as bees do. Virtue would not go far if vanity did not keep it company. This early english translation of the pillar of french. No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does. The desire to seem clever often keeps us from being so. In england, john dryden, alexander pope, and jonathan swift produced some of the most memorable epigrams of their time. All the translations are confined exclusively to the maxims, none include the reflections.
By this time, louis xiv had reached his majority and things settled down. French writer of sardonic aphorisms, published as maxims. He shows how it is generated in social interaction, but it also results from our ignorance of bodily processes acting on the will, and of psychological processes the mind is deceived by the heart and above all by selflove. He writes in the preface to the first edition that these reflections on human conduct will probably. Selflove is the love of a mans own self, and of every thing else, for his own sake. A table of alternative maxim numbers and an index of topics help the reader to locate any maxim quickly. Or, sentences and moral maxims our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised. Heres an excerpt from the introduction to an 1871 translation of the maxims. Some apology must be made for an attempt to translate the untranslatable.
Rochefoucauld was soon to undergo a bitter disappointment. It makes people idolaters to themselves, and tyrants to all the world besides. Other articles where maxims and moral reflections is discussed. Though so often translated, there is not a complete english edition of the maxims and reflections. As would plainly appear, if fortune did but furnish them with power and opportunities of shewing it. Excellent translation into english and expertly organized material. Poetic, ironic, and frequently humorous, his wise observations can also be blunt and brutally candid. A table of alternative maxim numbers and an index of topics help the. Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.
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