Jean De La Bruyere Quotes

Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.

It is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgment to be silent.

The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.

If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other.

We trust our secrets to our friends, but they escape from us in love.

Banter is often a proof of want of intelligence.

The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interest to promote yours.

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.

Love and friendship exclude each other.

Duty is what goes most against the grain, because in doing that we do only what we are strictly obliged to, and are seldom much praised for it.

We are valued in this world at the rate we desire to be valued.

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

A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.

I never have wit until I am below stairs. [Fr., Je n'ai jamais d'esprit qu'au bas de l'escalier.]

We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.

Women become attached to men by the intimacies they grant them; men are cured of their love by the same intimacies.

Cheats easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, nor do they long deceive.

Avoid making yourself the subject of conversation.

False glory is the rock of vanity; it seduces men to affect esteem by things which they indeed possess, but which are frivolous, and which for a man to value himself on would be a scandalous error.

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

A man reveals his character even in the simplest things he does.

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

Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.

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

The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.

No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.

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

You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views the world unmoved, unembarrassed, unabashed.

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.

Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.

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.

I take sanctuary in an honest mediocrity.

Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he wishes to be valued.

A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd.

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

We all covet wealth, but not its perils.

Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.

A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail.

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

A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.

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

When we lavish our money we rob our heir; when we merely save it we rob ourselves.

The fool only is troublesome. A plan of sense perceives when he is agreeable or tiresome; he disappears the very minute before he would have been thought to have stayed too long.

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

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

Politeness does not always inspire goodness, equity, complaisance, and gratitude; it gives at least the appearance of these qualities, and makes man appear outwardly, as he should be within.

As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, a physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid.

The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.