Maxims

These maxims, of this French Duke, remain one of the best books of its kind, and each observed expression has been translated into many languages, and frequently into English. The present edition--by John Heard, noted translator of Ronsard, von Hofmannsthal, Clemenceau, and others--was originally published by Houghton Miflfin, and long since out-of-print. It is issued complete and unabridged including the Sketch of the Author written by himself. La Rochefoucauld remains one of the great writers of French Enlightenment, who believed that man through reason alone could resolve the enduring problems shouldering mankind. Religion, of course, was one of those structures. Rousseau, Voltaire, among the more popular, actively pursued those goals of change. For them, religions remained the obstacles to mankind’s Terrestrial Paradise. Their movement, however, devolved into the French Revolution with its well-known Age of Terror. But, the one who maintained a balanced introspection into the nature of man was La Rochefoucauld. And this may be the reason why he has remained modern and his Maxims as popular then as they are now, while many of his famed colleagues have receded into obscurity.