Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.

The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.

Languages are the keys of science.

There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.

Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.

There is speaking well, speaking easily, speaking justly and speaking seasonably: It is offending against the last, to speak of entertainments before the indigent; of sound limbs and health before the infirm; of houses and lands before one who has not so much as a dwelling; in a word, to speak of your prosperity before the miserable; this conversation is cruel, and the comparison which naturally arises in them betwixt their condition and yours is excruciating.

It is in vain to ridicule a rich fool, for the laughers will be on his side.

We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice

We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood.

Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.

An assembly of the states, a court of justice, shows nothing so serious and grave as a table of gamesters playing very high; a melancholy solicitude clouds their looks; envy and rancor agitate their minds while the meeting lasts, without regard to friendship, alliances, birth or distinctions.

Misers are neither relations, nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even human beings.

When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.

Praise, of all things, is the most powerful excitement to commendable actions, and animates us in our enterprises.

Life at court does not satisfy a man, but it keeps him from being satisfied with anything else.

It is a proof of boorishness to confer a favor with a bad grace; it is the act of giving that is hard and painful. How little does a smile cost?

It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.

The great charm of conversation consists less in the display of one's own wit and intelligence than in the power to draw forth the resources of others.

The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.

The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.

Genius and great abilities are often wanting; sometimes, only opportunities. Some deserve praise for what they have done; others for what they would have done.

It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.

Some young people do not sufficiently understand the advantages of natural charms, and how much they would gain by trusting to them entirely. They weaken these gifts of heaven, so rare and fragile, by affected manners and an awkward imitation. Their tones and their gait are borrowed; they study their attitudes before the glass until they have lost all trace of natural manner, and, with all their pains, they please but little.

Caprice in women often infringes upon the rules of decency.

There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.

A well-born man is fortunate, but so is the man about whom people no longer ask, 'is he well-born?'

For a woman to be at once a coquette and a bigot is more than the humblest of husbands can bear; she should mercifully choose between the two.

How much wit, good-nature, indulgences, how many good offices and civilities, are required among friends to accomplish in some years what a lovely face or a fine hand does in a minute!

A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.

There are some who speak one moment before they think

Piety with some people, but especially with women, is either a passion, or an infirmity of age, or a fashion which must be followed.

Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.

You think him to be your dupe; if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you?

The very impossibility which I find to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.

We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed.

A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

A coxcomb is one whom simpletons believe to be a man of merit.

Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.

Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.

There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.

The mind, like all other things, will become impaired, the sciences are its food,--they nourish, but at the same time they consume it.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.

Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.

Dissimulation, even the most innocent in its nature, is ever productive of embarrassment; whether the design is evil or not artifice is always dangerous and almost inevitably disgraceful.