Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
a tous: et cette erreur extreme, Est un mal que chacun se plait
d'entretenir, Notre ame, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui meme, Tant
de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui. Miroirs, de nos defauts les
peintres legitimes, Et quant au canal, c'est celui Qui chacun sait, le
livre des MAXIMES."
It is just this: the book is a mirror in which we all see ourselves.
This has made it so unpopular. It is too true. We dislike to be told
of our faults, while we only like to be told of our neighbour's.
Notwithstanding Rousseau's assertion, it is young men, who, before they
know their own faults and only know their neighbours', that read and
thoroughly appreciate Rochefoucauld.
After so many varied opinions he then pleases us more and seems far
truer than he is in reality, it is impossible to give any general
conclusion of such distinguished writers on the subject. Each reader
will form his own opinion of the merits of the author and his book. To
some, both will seem deserving of the highest praise; to others both
will seem deserving of the highest censure. The truest judgment as to
the author will be found in the remarks of a countryman of his own, as
to the book in the remarks of a countryman of ours.
As to the author, M. Sainte Beuve says:--"C'etait un misanthrope poli,
insinuant, souriant, qui precedait de bien peu et preparait avec charme
l'autre MISANTHROPE."
As to the book, Mr. Hallam says:--"Among the books in ancient and
modern times which record the conclusions of observing men on the moral
qualities of their fellows, a high place should be reserved for the
Maxims of Rochefoucauld".
REFLECTIONS; OR, SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS
Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
[This epigraph which is the key to the system of La Rochefoucauld, is
found in another form as No. 179 of the maxims of the first edition,
1665, it is omitted from the 2nd and 3rd, and reappears for the first
time in the 4th edition, in 1675, as at present, at the head of the
Reflections.--Aime Martin. Its best answer is arrived at by reversing
the predicate and the subject, and you at once form a contradictory
maxim equally true, our vices are most frequently but virtues
disguised.]
1.--What we term virtue is often but a mass of various actions and
divers interests, which fortune, or our own industry, manage to arrange;
and it is not always from valour or from chastity that men are brave,
and women chaste.
"Who combats bravely is not therefore brave, He dreads a death-bed like
the meanest slave; Who reasons wisely is not therefore wise, His pride
in reasoning, not in acting, lies." Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. i. line 115.
2.--Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.
3.--Whatever discoveries have been made in the region of self-love,
there remain many unexplored territories there.
[This is the first hint of the system the author tries to develope. He
wishes to find in vice a motive for all our actions, but this does not
suffice him; he is obliged to call other passions to the help of his
system and to confound pride, vanity, interest and egotism with self
love. This confusion destroys the unity of his principle.--Aime Martin.]
4.--Self love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world.
5.--The duration of our passions is no more dependant upon us than the
duration of our life. [Then what becomes of free will?--Aime; Martin]
6.--Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and even sometimes
renders the most foolish man clever.
7.--Great and striking actions which dazzle the eyes are represented by
politicians as the effect of great designs, instead of which they are
commonly caused by the temper and the passions. Thus the war between
Augustus and Anthony, which is set down to the ambition they entertained
of making themselves masters of the world, was probably but an effect of
jealousy.
8.--The passions are the only advocates which always persuade. They are
a natural art, the rules of which are infallible; and the simplest man
with passion will be more persuasive than the most eloquent without.
[See Maxim 249 which is an illustration of this.]
9.--The passions possess a certain injustice and self interest which
makes it dangerous to follow them, and in reality we should distrust
them even when they appear most trustworthy.
10.--In the human heart there is a perpetual generation of passions; so
that the ruin of one is almost always the foundation of another.
11.--Passions often produce their contraries: avarice sometimes leads to
prodigality, and prodigality to avarice; we are often obstinate through
weakness and daring though timidity.
12.--Whatever care we take to conceal our passions under the appearances
of piety and honour, they are always to be seen through these veils.
[The 1st edition, 1665, preserves the image perhaps better--"however
we may conceal our passions under the veil, etc., there is always some
place where they peep out."]
13.--Our self love endures more impatiently the condemnation of our
tastes than of our opinions.
14.--Men are not only prone to forget benefits and injuries; they even
hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have
injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing a
benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit.
15.--The clemency of Princes is often but policy to win the affections
of the people.
["So many are the advantages which monarchs gain by clemency, so greatly
does it raise their fame and endear them to their subjects, that it
is generally happy for them to have an opportunity of displaying
it."--Montesquieu, Esprit Des Lois, Lib. VI., C. 21.]
16.--This clemency of which they make a merit, arises oftentimes from
vanity, sometimes from idleness, oftentimes from fear, and almost always
from all three combined.
[La Rochefoucauld is content to paint the age in which he lived. Here
the clemency spoken of is nothing more than an expression of the policy
of Anne of Austria. Rochefoucauld had sacrificed all to her; even the
favour of Cardinal Richelieu, but when she became regent she bestowed
her favours upon those she hated; her friends were forgotten.--Aime
Martin. The reader will hereby see that the age in which the writer
lived best interprets his maxims.]
17.--The moderation of those who are happy arises from the calm which
good fortune bestows upon their temper.
18.--Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt
which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a
vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men
at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their
fortune.
19.--We have all sufficient strength to support the misfortunes of
others.
[The strongest example of this is the passage in Lucretius, lib. ii.,
line I:-- "Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis E terra magnum
alterius spectare laborem."]
20.--The constancy of the wise is only the talent of concealing the
agitation of their hearts.
[Thus wisdom is only hypocrisy, says a commentator. This definition of
constancy is a result of maxim 18.]
21.--Those who are condemned to death affect sometimes a constancy and
contempt for death which is only the fear of facing it; so that one may
say that this constancy and contempt are to their mind what the bandage
is to their eyes.
[See this thought elaborated in maxim 504.]
22.--Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but
present evils triumph over it.
23.--Few people know death, we only endure it, usually from
determination, and even from stupidity and custom; and most men only die
because they know not how to prevent dying.
24.--When great men permit themselves to be cast down by the continuance
of misfortune, they show us that they were only sustained by ambition,
and not by their mind; so that PLUS a great vanity, heroes are made like
other men.
[Both these maxims have been rewritten and made conciser by the author;
the variations are not worth quoting.]
25.--We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune.
["Prosperity do{th} best discover vice, but adversity do{th} best
discover virtue."--Lord Bacon, Essays{, (1625), "Of Adversity"}.]
{The quotation wrongly had "does" for "doth".}
26.--Neither the sun nor death can be looked at without winking.
27.--People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but
envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow
her.
28.--Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to
preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the
other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.
29.--The evil that we do does not attract to us so much persecution and
hatred as our good qualities.
30.--We have more strength than will; and it is often merely for an
excuse we say things are impossible.
31.--If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noting
those of others.
32.--Jealousy lives upon doubt; and comes to an end or becomes a fury as
soon as it passes from doubt to certainty.
33.--Pride indemnifies itself and loses nothing even when it casts away
vanity.
[See maxim 450, where the author states, what we take from our other
faults we add to our pride.]
34.--If we had no pride we should not complain of that of others.
["The proud are ever most provoked by pride."--Cowper, Conversation
160.]
35.--Pride is much the same in all men, the only difference is the
method and manner of showing it.
["Pride bestowed on all a common friend."--Pope, Essay On Man, Ep. ii.,
line 273.]
36.--It would seem that nature, which has so wisely ordered the organs
of our body for our happiness, has also given us pride to spare us the
mortification of knowing our imperfections.
37.--Pride has a larger part than goodness in our remonstrances with
those who commit faults, and we reprove them not so much to correct as
to persuade them that we ourselves are free from faults.
38.--We promise according to our hopes; we perform according to our
fears.
["The reason why the Cardinal (Mazarin) deferred so long to grant the
favours he had promised, was because he was persuaded that hope was much
more capable of keeping men to their duty than gratitude."--Fragments
Historiques. Racine.]
39.--Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of
characters; even that of disinterestedness.
40.--Interest blinds some and makes some see.
41.--Those who apply themselves too closely to little things often
become incapable of great things.
42.--We have not enough strength to follow all our reason.
43.--A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind
endeavours to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards
another.
44.--Strength and weakness of mind are mis-named; they are really only
the good or happy arrangement of our bodily organs.
45.--The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of
Fortune.
46.--The attachment or indifference which philosophers have shown to
life is only the style of their self love, about which we can no more
dispute than of that of the palate or of the choice of colours.
47.--Our temper sets a price upon every gift that we receive from
fortune.
48.--Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we
are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others
like.
49.--We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
50.--Those who think they have merit persuade themselves that they are
honoured by being unhappy, in order to persuade others and themselves