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Full Idea
La Rochefoucauld is one of the first to have made use of the unconscious without naming it: for him, amour-propre conceals itself in the most diverse disguises.
Clarification
Amour-propre (Fr) is self-love
Gist of Idea
La Rochefoucauld's idea of disguised self-love implies an unconscious mind
Source
report of La Rochefoucauld (Maxims [1663]) by Jean-Paul Sartre - Transcendence of the Ego I (C)
Book Ref
Sartre,Jean-Paul: 'The Transcendence of the Ego' [Routledge 2004], p.17
A Reaction
It seems odd that no one before that ever thought that someone might have hidden motives of which even they themselves were unaware. How about Iago, or Macbeth, or Hamlet? It is a profound change in our view of human nature.
| 7118 | La Rochefoucauld's idea of disguised self-love implies an unconscious mind [Rochefoucauld, by Sartre] |
| 7912 | Judging by effects, love looks more like hatred than friendship [Rochefoucauld] |
| 7913 | Virtue doesn't go far without the support of vanity [Rochefoucauld] |
| 7914 | To try to be wise all on one's own is folly [Rochefoucauld] |
| 7915 | Supreme cleverness is knowledge of the real value of things [Rochefoucauld] |
| 7916 | True friendship is even rarer than true love [Rochefoucauld] |
| 9299 | We are bored by people to whom we ourselves are boring [Rochefoucauld] |
| 7917 | Realising our future misery is a kind of happiness [Rochefoucauld] |