can you write an insightful, everlasting maxime?

the maxime is closed and "evil" : like a castrating apparel, hard and brillant.

the maxime is a general part composed of particular parts.
one of the internal part is formal, immobile and have an autarkic eternal full sense: love, passion, pride, to hurt, to betray, gentle, impatient: this is the closed meaning uppon wich the maxime builds itself.

what defines these essences is that they are the term of a comparative relation, or an antithesis.
feels like minimalism applied to philosophy.
the maxim is trapped in numbers: 2 , 3, 4, 5 or 7 parts.
"l'amour-propre est le plus grand de tous les flatteurs" = 2 parts maxime. (strong parts being: amour-propre and flatteur)
"le bonheur et le malheur des hommes ne dépendent pas moind de leur humeur que de la fortune" = 4 parts maxime.

It tends toward the canon of classical art: antithesis and symmetry.
so working in pairs is natural for the maxime. 4 parts is best because it can dévelop a proportion.
"L'élévation est au mérite ce que la parure est aux belles personnes"= 4 parts linked with a report of compensation.
it's binary economy baby.
it's behaviour is dual and working on equivalence: a term is worth or isn't worth the other.
the maxime project is denunciation so the critical comparative rules.
this = that.
(c or d... ;-)

"nous ne nos donnons pas aux gens plus puissants que nous pour le bien que nous leur voulons faire, mais pour le bien que nous voulons recevoir"

the relation of deceptive identity rules: "n'est que" means "is just".
"la clémence des princes n'est souvent qu'une politique pour gagner l'affection des peuples"
"la constance des sages n'est que l'art de renfermer leur agitation dans le coeur"

it is a demystifying relation.
"n'est que" is the sharp point of the maxim.
a pessimism greedy of explaination.

la pointe: a spectacle who close the thought on a panache where the verb shuts up: touching at the same time the silence and the applauses. it is better when it appears at the end of the maxime.

a spectacle abruptly discovered.
the antithesis is the prefered figure of the point. (oppposed , below, under, etc)

the antithesis becomes knowledge of the opposition of terms, a mecanism of meaning, like a surprising spectacle : the spectatcle of meaning "is just" serves to disappoint, to deflate abstract virtues (clémence, vaillance, force, sincérité, mépris de la mort)
in the sense that these "vain" objets must find back their reality. it is the second term wich gives it to them, who reveal the troo virtue.
3 categories or "real world" objects
-association: vanité, fureur, paresse, ambition, amour propre.
-contingence: hasard, fortune, corps, subjectivité physique, humeur.
-interchangable: actions, défauts, effets.
wich compose the reality, the virtues being only a dream of those objects.

a mask must fall each time.
each maxime ceases the angst of a doubtful sign.
it appeases the duplicity of what we can see, appareances sometimes being reductive.
like, it's saying "who cares if what i propose is bleak, it is infinitely better than continuing to let a doubt live."

maxime will never produce a final definition of what it is to be a man.
(getting closer to Barthe's brillant finale my notes are getting faster and looser i'll stop here for now)

writing these notes i had a couple of ideas of maximes, i'll try to make some out of what i've read on ilx (search ILX pearls of wisdom) and from other works, to use this dialectical form to better get out of it or something (i have an idea to resume some points of judith butler for an example). i also have a vague idea on humour, culture and politic that i'll use for the immortalist cause. to be continued i guess

i hope that maybe some ilx0rz will give this thing a try :-)

fair enough i guess

1. watermelon
2. satin sheets
3. Buick LeSabre
4. Bernie Mac
5. The Dictators
6. Cripple Creek, CO
7. ass hat
8. evil clowns
9. Ed Asner
10. artificial grape

::sigh::

I feel much better now. Thank you.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.

The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, ............
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis
more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth.
Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power
and beauty of your youth until they've faded.

But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself
and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you
and how fabulous you really looked.

You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future.

Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective
as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum.

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things
that never crossed your worried mind,
the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts.

Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy.

Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind.

The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults.

If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.

The most interesting people I know didn't know
at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.

Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't.

Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't.

Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken
on your 75th wedding anniversary.

Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either.

Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body.

Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it.

It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

"brother and sister together we'll make it through,

someday a spirit will take you and guide you there

I know that you're hurting but i've been waiting there for you

and I'll be there just helping you out

whenever I can"

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past
and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,
but with a precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle,
because the older you get, the more you need the people
who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths:

Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old.

And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young,
prices were reasonable, politicians were noble,
and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you.

Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse.
But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.

Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

maxim n [C] a brief statement of a general truth, principle or rule for behaviour. - He often preaches the maxim of 'use it or lose it'.

Oh, I forgot about the -e. Never mind.Carry on.

??

Not really.

thank you for the correction

One's thirst for knowledge is just vanity if one doesn't treat google as an extension of vis brain.

(editing most welcome)

This should be the third post in every question

"Everything Stateside is great, we rule, you suck, even though we know little about you, but why should we, coz you suck and we rule."

I am sympathetic to the ambitions of this thread but I think it might go better if you put your example maximes in English (unless a maxime by definition has to be in French, that is). Then I might try.

The self-love of networkers is the greatest target for the hypocite who wants to cover vis ineptitude, so this is the mesure
that will either make the network stable or trigger a cascading failiure.

(it's more a reflexion than a maxim, in any case I still need to work on it but I have to go to bed)

"Self-love is the greatest of all flattor* " is a 2 parts maxim. (strong parts being: self-love and flattor)

"Happiness and misfortune of people doesn't depend less of their mood than their fortune" is a 4 parts maxim.

I think it's better to fit the words "is just" in there to get a better dynamic and a sense of revelation.

I'll make-up original ones today.

* as in flattery

The idea is from k0rtbein. Hmm, there must be more maxime-like way of phrasing that.

Not that you've explained what a maxime is, really. You've presented a bunch of unedited classroom notes as if it were the same as an essay. And I've been trying to retranslate your examples into something that could be read as "insightful" or "everlasting" but they all keep coming off as "trite" and "reductive" -- which admittedly is kinda interesting, the thin line between insightful and trite, and how maybe it's all in the delivery...

(not today)

You are entitled to your opinion. I happen to disagree with this one.

You've presented a bunch of unedited classroom notes as if it were the same as an essay.

If it would have been an essay I would have said it is an essay: I said right off the start it was just "some fast & loose notes". I couldn't compete with Barthes to explain what a maxim is (that's why I posted the reference in the first post), I just wanted to get things rolling I guess but you are right about the quality of this post: when I submitted it, things were dead but I should have known that since it was too noisy it could have been used against me somehow. Know the idea was to provide a rough template to inspire posters.

and how maybe it's all in the delivery...

You are right about my original maxims, I'll have to fold them over and over again until they are armed with what Barthes called "la pointe".