We are more sociable, and get on better with people by the heart than the intellect.
Jean de la BruyereIt is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?
Jean de la BruyereLet us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.
Jean de la BruyereFalse greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.
Jean de la Bruyere