Product Description

This is the first-ever French-English edition of La Rochefoucauld's 'Reflexions, ou sentences et maximes morales', long known in English simply as the 'Maxims'. The translation, the first to appear in forty years, is completely new and aims - unlike all previous versions - at being literal as possible. This involves, among other things, redering the same word - for example, 'amour-propre as self-love - as consistently throughout as good sense allows. This also means that the translators have made every effort to maintain La Rochefoucauld's word order. This allows the reader the best vantage point for viewing La Rochefoucauld's dramatic and paradoxical juxtapositions of words and ideas, juxtapositions of the utmost importance to understanding his thought. Despite the translation's concern with literalness, careful attention has been paid to the nuances of the literary character of the 'Maxims'. In addition, this work contains a series of detailed indices that will greatly aid the reader in finding just the right maxim. Also includes is the original French index of the work. At the heart of La Rochefoucauld's 'Maxims' lies the attempt to disclose the great disparity between the exaggerated self-estimation of men and women and their actual condition. As La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) unremittngly unmasks various pretenses, he elaborately exposes the 'complexity' of motivesm which underlie and inform human conduct: whereas many endeavour to reveal a unity in plurality, La Rochefoucauld endeavours to reveal a plurality in unity. Playful, yet serious, ironic, yet direct, poetic, yet philosophical, the 'Maxims' penerate to themes at the center of reflection and judgment about the human situation. Worthy of study at any time, the 'Maxims' are especially relevant in the strange times in which we live. This edition includes the 504 maxims of the definitive, fifth edition of 1678, along with 137 other maxims which were either withdrawn from earlier editions or published posthumously, In addition to the maxims, La Rochefoucald's self-portrait and Cardinal de Retz's portrait of La Rochefoucauld are also included.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #902209 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12
• Original language: French
• Binding: Hardcover
• 172 pages

From the Back Cover
"Stuart D. Warner and Stéphane Douard's handsome new edition of the 'Maximes' admirably succeeds in it two high purposes: it is a book beautifully organizesd for the maximum convenience of its readers that provides a translation - chaste, literal, and elegant - absolutely faithful tot he meaning of the great La Rochefoucauld. A spendid achievement in every way."

-Joseph Epstein
"A thorough edition and a superb translation of the most acute work in the French classical moralistic wisdom. The Introduction is brilliant. What La Rochefoucald denounced as the appetites of human pride is not so different indeed from what nowadays is called narcissism. His book expressed disillusion wih aristocratic individualistic values. But his resemblance with the 'demystifiers' of our times makes his 'Maximes' essential reading. A very remarkable book."

-Jean Starobinski
"La Rochefoucauld's sententious reflections on life, death and much of what passes in their compass are given shape in a masterly introduction that locates their author his relation to his moral and spiritual heritage and to a future that has become our modern environment. The thoughtful translation adds much to the merit of this valuable work."

-Joseph Cropsey

Excerpt
Moral Reflections

Nos vertus ne sont, le plus souvent, que des vices déguisés.
Our virtues are, most often, only vices disguised.

1 Ce que nous prenons pour des vertus n’est souvent qu’un assemblage de diverses actions et de divers intérêts, que la fortune ou notre industrie savent arranger; et ce n’est pas toujours par valeur et par chasteté que les hommes sont vaillants, et que les femmes sont chastes.
What we take for virtues are often only a collection of various actions and interests which fortune or our own industry knows how to arrange; and it is not always through valor and chastity that men are valiant and that women are chaste.

2 L’amour-propre est le plus grand de tous les flatteurs.
Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.

3 Quelque découverte que 1'on ait faite dans le pays 1'amour-propre, il y reste encore bien des terres inconnues.
Whatever discovery was made in the country of self-love, many unknown lands remain there still.

4 L’amour-propre est plus habile que le plus habile homme du monde.
Self-love is more clever than the most clever man in the world.

5 La durée de nos passions ne dépend pas plus de nous que la durée de notre vie.
The duration of our passions depends on us no more than the duration of our lives.

6 La passion fait souvent un fou du plus habile homme, et rend souvent les plus sots habiles.
Passion often makes a madman out of the most clever man, and often renders the most foolish clever.

7 Ces grandes et éclatantes actions qui éblouissent les yeux sont représentées par les politiques comme les effets des grands desseins, au lieu que ce sont d'ordinaire les effets de 1'humeur et des passions. Ainsi la guerre d'Auguste et d’Antoine, qu'on rapporte à 1'ambition qu’ils avaient de se rendre maîtres du monde, n’était peut-être qu’un effet de_jalousie.
These great and brilliant actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by statesmen as the effects of great designs, whereas they are ordinarily the effects of the humors and of the passions. Thus, the war of Augustus and Anthony, which is ascribed to the ambition they had to become masters of the world, was perhaps only an effect of jealousy.

8 Les passions sont les seuls orateurs qui persuadent toujours. Elles sont comme un art de la nature dont les règles sont infaillibles; et 1'homme le plus simple qui a de la passion persuade mieux que le plus éloquent qui n'en a point.
Passions are the only orators which always persuade. They are like an art of nature, the rules of which are infallible. and the simplest man who has some passion persuades better than the most eloquent who has none.

9 Les passions ont une injustice et un propre intérêt qui fait qu'il est dangereux de les suivre, et quon sen doit déffier lors même qu'elles paraissent les plus raisonnables.
Passions have an injustice and a self-interest of their own which makes following them dangerous, and one should distrust them, even when they appear most reasonable.

10 II y a dans le cœur humain une géneration perpétuelle de passions, en sorts que la ruine de 1'une est presque toujours 1'établissement d'une autre.
There is in the human heart a perpetual generation of passions, such that the downfall of one is almost always the establishment of another.

11 Les passions en engendrent souvent qui leur sont contraires. L’avarice produit quelquefois la prodigalité; et la prodigalité 1'avarice; on est souvent ferme par faiblesse, et audacieux par timidité.
Passions often engender passions which are contrary to them. Avarice sometimes begets prodigality, and prodigality avarice; one is often resolute through weakness, and bold through timidity.

12 Quelque soin que 1'on prenne de couvrir ses passions par des apparences de piété et d’honneur, elles paraissent toujours au travers de ces voiles.
Whatever care one takes to cover one's passions with appearances of piety and honor, they always appear through these veils.

13 Notre amour-propre souffre plus impatiemment la condemnation de nos goûts que de nos opinions.
Our self-love suffers more impatiently the condemnation of our tastes than our opinions.

14 Les hommes ne sont pas seulement sujets à perdre le souvenir des bien faits et des injures; its haïssent même ceux qui les ont obligés, et cessent de haïr. ceux qui leur ont fait des outrages. L’application à récompenser le bien, et a se venger du mal, leur paraît une servitude à laquelle ils ont peine de se soumettre.
Men are not only subject to losing the memory of benefits and injuries, they even hate those who benefited them, and cease to hate those who have committed outrages against them. The diligence of rewarding the good and taking revenge on the bad appears to them as a servitude into which they have difficulty delivering themselves.

15 La clémence des princes n’est souvent qu'une politique pour gagner 1'affection des peuples.
The leniency of princes is often only a policy for winning the affection of the people.

16 Cette clémence dont on fait une vertu se pratique tantôt par vanité, quelque fois par paresse, souvent par crainte, et presque toujours par tous les trois ensemble.
This leniency of which a virtue is made is sometimes practiced out of vanity, now and then out of laziness, often out of fear, and almost always out of all three together.

17 La moderation des personnes heureuses vient du calme que la bonne fortune donne à leur humeur
The moderation of happy people comes from the calm that good fortune gives to their humors.

Customer Reviews

Correction for Review #2 (HART from Colorado, USA)
The author of the "Maximes" (an absolute classic!)Francois VI, Duc de la Rochefoucault, was born in Paris in 1613 and lived until 1680.

The 'Maxims' as a Classic of 'Crooked Wisdom.'
The famous Indian classic, Kautilya's 'Arthasastra,' a treatise which deals with the attainment of worldly ends, distinguishes between two kinds of wisdom - Straight and Crooked. To the former belong (to use Western examples) such works as 'The Imitation of Christ' by Thomas a Kempis, a work which teaches how, ideally, the virtuous should live, while overlooking the fact that often it would be extremely impractical and socially disastrous to live in such a way.

The second class of books, those which teach the art of 'Crooked Wisdom,' is exemplified in the East by Kautilya's 'Arthasastra' itself, and in the West by such works as Balthasar Gracian's 'The Art of Worldly Wisdom,' Francesco Guicciardini's 'Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman' (Ricordi), and by the present collection of Maxims by La Rochefoucauld.

These books are both highly realistic and extremely practical, for they depict, not man as he is supposed to be, but man as he is with all his selfishness, stupidity, ambition, arrogance, malice, laziness and other imperfections, and they teach the art of how, not merely to survive, but even to thrive in the midst of our far from perfect fellow men and women. And, certainly in the case of La Rochefoucauld, this teaching is done with great precision and wit.

'Crooked Wisdom,' then, should not be understood as the product of a crooked mind, but as the clear-sighted wisdom one needs to survive in a world teeming with such minds, a world, as Tancock says, involved in a "sordid struggle of self-interests, a scramble for power, position, and influence in which the foulest motives and methods [are] decked with labels such as duty, honor, patriotism, and glory."

La Rochefoucauld seems to provoke two very different kinds of reaction. Fully paid up members of the rose-tinted spectacles club, are shocked and horrified by his portrait of man and society, and they tend to dislike both the man and his book.

The more realistically inclined, however, will savor his bite and wit and will readily acknowledge the self-evident truth of much if not all of what he says. The man was undoubtedly brilliant, not only in terms of the many profound insights he gave us - particularly those having to do with 'amour propre' or self-love - but also in terms of the skill with which he translated those insights into pithy and memorable maxims.

Tancock defines the maxim as the expression of "some thought about human motives or behavior in a form containing the maximum of clarity and TRUTH with the minimum of words arranged in the most striking and memorable order" (my caps). La Rochefoucauld's aim, in short, was simply to tell the truth, and to tell it for our benefit.

The maxim as a literary genre was cultivated in his milieu, and La Rochefoucauld's were polished to a high state of perfection, for they had to satisfy a critical and sophisticated audience. Seven years were devoted to refining them, during which the circle of his aristocratic friends and fellow habitues of Mmme de Sable's salon repeatedly offered advice and criticism.

The 'Maxims,' then, although the product of an individual sensibility, also become in a sense the product a collective effort, having emerged from a serious and civilized salon whose interests were psychological, literary, and linguistic. Anyone who feels inclined to dismiss them might keep this in mind.

I discovered La Rochefoucauld many years ago, and have always been a great admirer of his Maxims. Once read, they are never forgotten. They have a way of burrowing deeply into the mind, and the fact that they tend to recur in those moments when we are reflecting on life and mulling over our experiences seems to me a kind of proof of their veracity.

One that has always struck me as particularly significant is Maxim 22 : "Philosophy easily triumphs over past ills and ills to come, but present ills triumph over philosophy." Or, in the words of the Red Queen : "Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but no jam today." If such truths are not exactly cheering, this in no way detracts from their being true.

There is an enormous amount to be learned by the honest and open-minded reader from La Rochefoucauld's 'Maxims,' especially if they also have a sense of humor. But the 'Happy Days! Happy Sky!' school, whose main requirement of a writer would seem to be that he should confirm them in their beautiful illusions, would be wiser to look elsewhere for edification. La Rochefoucauld is not a writer for the faint of heart, nor for those without a sense of humor.

La Rochefoucauld is Very Important
FERDINAND-DREYFUS, Un philanthrope d'autrefois: La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 1747-1827 (Paris, 1903). Translated to English. WJH (François-Alexandre-Frédéric).

Born at La Roche-Guyon, on 11 January, 1747; died at Paris, 27 March, 1827.

Opposed during the last years of the reign of Louis XV to the government of Maupeou, and the friend of all the reformers who surrounded Louis XVI, he owed to the influence of these economists the favour of the king. Having little liking for the military profession he devoted himself to scientific agriculture. During the rage for rural life which characterized the last years of the old regime, La Rochefoucauld made his estate at Liancourt an experimental station, whishing to improve both the soil and the peasantry. He introduced new methods of farming, founded the first model technical school in France (intended for the children of poor soldiers), and started two factories. Politically, he was a partisan of a democratic regime of which the king was to be the head, and throughout his life was faithful to this dream. Deputy for the nobility of Clermont in Beauvaisis at the States-General, he voted unhesitatingly for the "reunion of the three orders". it was he who in the night which followed the taking of the Bastille (14 July, 1789) roused Louis XVI, saying: "Sire, it is not a revolt, it is a revolution." He presided at the Constituent Assembly from 20 July to 3 August, 1789. On the night of 4 August he was one of the most enthusiastic in voting the abolition of titles of nobility and privileges. As grand master of the wardrobe he accompanied Louis XVI from Versailles to Paris on 5 and 6 October, 1789. As president of the committee of mendicancy, he made a supreme effort at the Constituent Assembly to organize public relief; he determined the extent and the limits of the rights of every citizen to assistance, determined the obligations of the State, and established a budget of State assistance which amounted annually to five millions and a half of francs, and which implied the national confiscation of hospital property, of ecclesiastical charitable property, and of the income from private foundations.

Liancourt is one of the most undiscerning representatives of the tendency which led the revolutionary state to destroy all collective forms of charity. Absolutely devoted to the person of Louis XVI as well as to the doctrines of the Revolution, he secured for himself in 1792 the lieutenancy of Normandy and Picardy, so as to prepare for the flight of the king as far as Rouen; but Louis XVI refused to place himself in the hands of constitutional deputies. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt emigrated shortly after 10 August, and resided in England until 1794, afterwards in the United States (1794-7). He took advantage of his residence in that country to write eight volumes on the United States to induce Washington to interfere in favour of Lafayette, and to gather ideas upon education and agriculture which he attempted later to apply in France. After 18 Brumaire, Napoleon authorized him to return to his Liancourt estate, which was restored to him. This former duke and peer gloried in being appointed, during the first Empire (1806), general inspector of the "Ecole des arts et métiers" at Châlons, of which his Liancourt school had been a forerunner. The book "Prisons de Philadelphie" which he composed in American and published in 1796, was meant to initiate a penitentiary reform in France at the Restoration in 1814 he begged but one favour-to be appointed prison inspector. In 1819 he became inspector of one of the twenty-eight arrondissements into which France was divided for penitentiary purposes. Louis XVIII gave him back neither the blue ribbon nor the mastership of the wardrobe, and in the House of Peers he sat with the opposition.

La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt was the Franklin of the Revolution. An aristocrat by birth, a liberal in his views, in touch with all the representatives of the new commerce, he availed himself of this concurrence of circumstances to become the leader of every campaign for the people's protection and betterment; improvement of sanitary conditions in hospitals and foundling asylums, reorganization of schools according to the theories of Lancaster, whose book he had translated (Système anglais d'Instruction). He brought into use the methods of mutual instruction, and the pupils between 1816 and 1820 increased from 165,000 to 1,123,000. In 1818 he established the first savings bank and provident institution in Paris. On 19 Nov., 1821, he founded the Society of Christian Morals, over which he presided until 1825. It was at times looked upon with suspicion by the police of the Restoration. At its meetings were such men as Charles de Rémusat, Charles Coquerel, Guizot the Pedagogue, Oberlin, and Llorente, historian of the Inquisition. Broglie, Guizot, and Benjamin Constant were chairmen in turn, and Dufaure, Tocqueville, and Lamartine made there their maiden speeches. In these meetings provident institutions, rather than charitable ones, were discussed; slavery, lottery, gambling were combatted, and the matter of prison inspection was taken up. When La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt died, the Restoration would not permit the students of Châlons to carry his coffin, and the two chambers were much concerned over such extreme measures. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt was a typical philanthropist, with all that this word implies of generous intentions and practical innovations; but also with a certain naïve pride, inherited from the philosophy of the eighteenth century, which led him to mistrust the charitable initiative of the Church, and to forget that the Church, the most perfect representative of the spirit of brotherhood, is still called in our modern society to win the victory for this spirit by putting it to practical uses, as she alone can.