Francois was born in paris, france, and belonged to one of. It is said that his worldview was cleareyed and urbane, and that he neither condemned human conduct nor sentimentally celebrated it. French writer of sardonic aphorisms, published as maxims. His collected maxims were revised and the authorized version appeared in 1678. The deck includes all 504 moral reflections, excluding the. He is a man for our own impatient, distracted times. Now, for the first time, scholars of anglofrench literary relations can read each maxim in this period translation together with its french original.
The common practice of cunning is a sign of small genius. His maxims are in fact a concentrate of jokes, remarks or funny quotes about human passions, pettiness and human miseries. During the mid1640s, the french king louis xiv was just a child, and his mother and other members of the royal court ruled in his stead. He participated in military life and supported the interests of the french aristocracy. Behind almost every one of the maxims lies a challenge to. Voltaire reported that the french knew these maxims by heart. It is said that his worldview was cleareyed and urbane, and that he neither condemned human conduct nor. Collected maxims provides a window into the thought of 17th century french court as relevant today as when initially penned. The translation, the first to appear in forty years, is completely new and aims unlike all. The freelance history writer would like to take a look at some of these remarkable artists. Moral maxims and reflections in four parts written in french by the duke of rochefoucault. Born in paris on the rue des petits champs, at a time when the. For more than seventy years, penguin has been the leading publisher of. The pithy maxims, being in french and english, offer an entertaining supplement to french study.
It is, perhaps, from this love of epigram, that we find so many eminent french writers of maxims. A translation of reflections, or sentences and moral. He writes in the preface to the first edition that these reflections. Like in the human heart one generation of passions follows another.
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