La Rochefoucauld

Catholic (a large number of Catholics perished), to some Huguenots such as La Rochefoucauld, brave guerrier et joyeux compagnon, dear to

Gaston de Latour; an unfinished romance Walter Pater 1866

The worst way to go about it, as La Rochefoucauld's maxim has it, is to strain after naturalness.

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

"Nothing prevents us from being natural," wrote La Rochefoucauld, "as much as the wish to look natural."

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

The method of composition of La Rochefoucauld's maxims is noteworthy.

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

La Rochefoucauld's work in this line, some 500-odd maxims, was collected and published in its fifth, definitive edition in 1678 under the title "Reflexions ou Sentences et Maximes Morales," most often known in English as "Collected Maxims and Other Reflections."

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

Daniel Zalkus 'La Rochefoucauld perfected pithy verbal darts aimed at deflating our self-deception.'

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

The task of La Rochefoucauld's "Collected Maxims" is to fill us in on these manifold deficiencies, which we have all been so cunning in refusing to recognize.

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

La Rochefoucauld would not have found working at the Hallmark greeting-card company congenial.

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

By then at the end of his active career as a lover, intriguer at the court of the regency of Louis XIV, and soldier who had thrice chosen the wrong side in the civil wars known as the Fronde, La Rochefoucauld clearly exceeded all others at this game.

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011

Most of La Rochefoucauld's are darts aimed at the human talent for self-deception, which, as has been well established, is inexhaustible.

Puncturing Our Pretensions Joseph Epstein 2011