French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)
A man must be very inert to have no character at all.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
Great things only require to be simply told, for they are spoiled by emphasis; but little things should be clothed in lofty language, as they are only kept up by expression, tone of voice, and style of delivery.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
Two persons will not be friends long if they are not inclined to pardon each other's little failings.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
Time, which strengthens friendship, weakens love.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Women", Les Caractères
The same common-sense which makes an author write good things, makes him dread they are not good enough to deserve reading.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
The pleasure of criticism takes away from us the pleasure of being deeply moved by very fine things.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
It is better to expose ourselves to ingratitude than to neglect our duty to the distressed.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
The fear of old age disturbs us, yet we are not certain of becoming old.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
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!
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
There are but two ways of rising in the world, either by your own industry or by the folly of others.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères
The finest and most beautiful ideas on morals and manners have been swept away before our times, and nothing is left for us but to glean after the ancients and the ablest amongst the moderns.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
It is the glory and the merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
It is often easier as well as more advantageous to conform ourselves to other men's opinions than to bring them over to ours.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
I am not astonished that men who lean, as it were, on an atom, should stumble at the smallest efforts they make for discovering the truth ; that, being so short-sighted, they do not reach beyond the heavens and the stars, to contemplate God Himself.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Freethinkers", Les Caractères
How many men are like trees, already strong and full grown, which are transplanted into some gardens, to the astonishment of those people who behold them in these fine spots, where they never saw them grow, and who neither know their beginning nor their progress!
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères
All the worth of some people lies in their name; upon a closer inspection it dwindles to nothing, but from a distance it deceives us.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères