Andas på snö : maximer och tankar

by Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues, Peter Handberg (Translator)

Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) var ursprungligen officer, men övergav den militära banan för att ägna sig åt sitt författarskap. Han beundrade de antika författarna och skrev en rad essäer och moralfilosofiska aforismer. Han uppmuntrades intensivt av Voltaire, men dog 31 år gammal utan vare sig några pengar eller litterär framgång. Senare har hans verk lästs och uppskattats av såväl Friedrich Nietzsche som Paul Rée.

Peter Handberg har översatt och skrivit ett introducerande förord till Vauvenargues tänkande.

Genres: Philosophy, France, French Literature, Classics, Nonfiction

153 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1746

About the author

Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues est un écrivain, moraliste et aphoriste français.

Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues was a minor French writer, a moralist. He died at age 31, in broken health, having published the year prior—anonymously—a collection of essays and aphorisms with the encouragement of Voltaire, his friend. He first received public notice under his own name in 1797, and from 1857 on, his aphorisms became popular. In the history of French literature, his significance lies chiefly in his friendship with Voltaire (20 years his senior).

(Source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant and often hysterical, Vauvenargues is closer to Schopenhauer or Nietzsche (in spirit but not temper) than Voltaire or La Rochefoucauld. Unsurprisingly he was taken for a kindred thinker by the former two, with his emphasis on mediocrity, stupidity, cleverness, irrationality, immoralism, and "the age." Vauvenargues has a rare genius for contrasting combinations: sensing counterintuitive relations between multiple polar binaries simultaneously. My own favorite: "It's a great sign of mediocrity to always praise things moderately." Ha! Some more:

When great men told weak people to reflect, they put them on the path to error.

The weak sometimes want to be thought of as wicked; but the wicked want to pass for good.

The usual reason that people give for making others unhappy is wanting what is best for them.

The advice of old people spreads light without warmth, like the sun in winter.

Unimaginative people save themselves from their lives by talking a lot.

Wicked men are always surprised to find cleverness in good ones.

When a person doesn't want to hide any part of his intelligence, he usually lowers its reputation.

What we call a brilliant thought is usually just a captivating expression which, with the help of a little truth, imposes a surprising error on us.

[SB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heraclitean fire throughout tempered only by a quasi-enlightenment faith in human improvability. It makes sense that Human All Too Human-era Nietzsche saw in Vauvs a kindred spirit, but the two are ultimately quite different in their respective outlooks. First of all Vauvs died at only 31 years of age, impoverished and forgotten (despite previously receiving accolades from no less a figure than Voltaire), but secondly, the Frenchman's aphorisms do not betray Nietzsche's ambition of exploding reality with antinomian grenades and turning language against itself with carefully constructed paradoxes. No, Vauvs' outlook is solidly that of an early modern French moralist, i.e. cynical, pessimistic, reactionary but also universalist and not unfriendly towards the Enlightenment, and always extremely cautiously humanistic. This is the mind of a classically-educated aristocrat, a world-weary front-line veteran who survived the War of the Austrian Succession (one of the more byzantine, politically-engineered wars of the early modern period and a foreshadowing of the Great War), a stoical survivor of smallpox, accute penury (despite his aristocratic background), and courtly intrigue.
"S'il y a un amour de nous-mêmes naturellement efficieux et compatissant, et un autre amour-propre sans humanité, sans équité, sans bornes, sans raison, faut-il les confondre?"[291]

[Cosmin Stroe · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Judecata face filosofi, însă doar virtutea face înțelepți."

"Dacă virtutea singură ar fi de ajuns, atunci nu ar mai fi o calitate umană, ci una supranaturală."

"Se întâmplă adesea să fim prețuiți, pe măsură ce ne prețuim noi înșine."

[Renan Correia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uma leitura essencial para que sanássemos a duvida: Como seria um Rochefoucauld otimista?

[James Dempsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The maxims of Vauvenargue are much lighter than those of La Rochefoucauld, as the former unlike the latter had not been left to brood, deflated in defeat, by the effervescent vicissitudes of political life. La Rochefoucauld was exposed to the murky court politics of the Sun King and therefore to the shadiness of man in all of his striking sublimity; self interest, cynicism, the absence of value, the want of gain, were the beaming lights which blinded him and which he believed to epitomise the base nature of humanity as he saw it. Vauvenargue on the other did not share in this world view; he was neither a man of affairs nor court politics. Their is something stoic in the mind of Vauvenargue, and he seems not to suffer weakness nor timidity nor mediocrity lightly. Ad astra, he opines. This I would imagine is due to his want of being a soldier, and the values which come aligned to the aspiration of being associated with that profession. He often refers to great men, but I am not sure if he thinks himself as being one. Perhaps that is why he wrote this book.

[Mihay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many helpful-in-life and precious thoughts.

[Nasrudin · Rating 3 out of 5]

". Si une pensée ou un ouvrage n’intéressent que peu de personnes, peu en parleront"

[Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucid and penetrating insights into the human condition.