I am going to lump the next three together because they all deal with self love which looks as if it will be a lasting preoccupation of La Rochefoucauld:


a) Self-love is the greatest of flatterers
b) Whatever discoveries have been made in the region of self-love, there remain many unexplored territories there.

c) Self love is more cunning than the most cunning man in the world

It appears that Roche is worried about self-love. Perhaps he has recognized himself as a narcissist and thought it carried with it a foul taste. But in these three related  maxims he doesn't really warn us about what self-love might lead to. He merely recognizes it as an agent by which man can become misguided, he references no forest pool and the death lurking at the bottom for narcissus. 

Again I'm struck by the impossibility of not agreeing with La Roche. Surely self love is a dangerous thing. While self love may breed out of truth, it can grow into a monster that takes over the shell of the entire body. But our French Maxim Maker doesn't give us any advice on how to recognize self love or how to ignore it? Maybe he should add on at the end:  Avoid Looking into Mirrors, or Always wear an unbecoming hat and mismatching shoes. 

My other question to our deceased writer is: Why not just combine the three of these into one maxim? Are they different enough to qualify as separate maxims? Self-Love is very powerful, hard to defeat, and very sneaky. Why couldn't he have just said "Beware Self-love"? Are all the maxims just going to be ghostly sayings, not exactly warnings and not exactly advice?

So how do we avoid self-love? Help Others. THink about others. That might do the trick. I wonder if I might cut a publishing deal for my own list of Maxims. Mine will surely be shorter than this guy's and isn't the point of maxims to go all lenient on our eyes? The only page in my book would be: "Do good things" or maybe if I am getting paid by the page I might be able to find 700 or so different ways of phrasing that.  

But I will give it to La Roche, these are important reminders. I don't know if they qualify as maxims, but I certainly don't want to become a narcissist, I do wish, however, that he might tell me how to know if I already am one.