This little collection was
read with avidity, it taught people to think, and to
comprise their thoughts in a lively, precise, and delicate
turn of expression. This was a merit which, before
him, no one in Europe had attained since the revival
of letters."
Dr. Johnson speaks of it as "the only book written
by a man of fashion, of which professed authors need
be jealous."
Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, says,
"Till you come to know mankind by your experience,
I know no thing nor no man that can in the mean-
time bring you so well acquainted with them as Le
Duc de la Rochefoucauld. His little book of maxims,
which I would advise you to look into for some
moments at least every day of your life, is, I fear, too
like and too exact a picture of human nature. I own
it seems to degrade it, but yet my experience does not
convince me that it degrades it unjustly."
Bishop Butler, on the other hand, blames the book
in no measured terms. "There is a strange affecta-
tion," says the bishop, "in some people of explaining
away all particular affection, and representing the
whole life as nothing but one continued exercise
of self-love.
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