Jean de la Bruyere Quotes

If a handsome woman allows that another woman is beautiful, we may safely conclude she excels her.

When we are dead we are praised by those who survive us, though we frequently have no other merit than that of being no longer alive.

A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.

Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it. Matter-of-fact men, and those who like precision, naturally fall into comparisons and metaphor. Sprightly natures, full of fire, and whom a boundless imagination carries beyond all rules, and even what is reasonable, cannot rest satisfied even with hyperbole. As for the sublime, it is only great geniuses and those of the very highest order that are able to rise to its height.

Out of difficulties grow miracles.

I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others.

Born merely for the purpose of digestion.

The best thing next to wit is a consciousness that it is not in us; without wit, a man might then know how to behave himself, so as not to appear to be a fool or a coxcomb.

We seek our happiness outside ourselves, and in the opinion of men we know to be flatterers, insincere, unjust, full of envy, caprice and prejudice.

Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.

The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.

A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.

The most exquisite pleasure is giving pleasure to others.

To endeavor to forget anyone is a certain way of thinking of nothing else.

It is a sad thing when men have neither enough intelligence to speak well nor enough sense to hold their tongues; this is the root of all impertinence.

The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.

A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.

If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.

There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.

High birth is a gift of fortune which should never challenge esteem towards those who receive it, since it costs them neither study nor labor.

The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.

Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to talk less; or if you must talk, say little.

A woman is easily governed, if a man takes her in hand.

The flatterer does not think highly enough of himself or of others.

It would be a kind of ferocity to reject indifferently all sorts of praise. One should be glad to have that which comes from good men who praise in sincerity things that are really praiseworthy.

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

The nearer we come to great men the more clearly we see that they are only men. They rarely seem great to their valets.

The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.

We hope to grow old and we dread old age; that is to say, we love life and we flee from death.

The majority of women have no principles of their own; they are guided by the heart, and depend for their own conduct, upon that of the men they love.

The State not seldom tolerates a comparatively great evil to keep out millions of lesser ills and inconveniences which otherwise would be inevitable and without remedy.

Such a great misfortune, not to be able to be alone.

The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.

There is nothing which continues longer than a moderate fortune; nothing of which one sees sooner the end than a large fortune.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.

Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.

Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds - habits and novelty.

There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.