Jean De La Bruyere Quotes

It is no more in our power to love always than it was not to love at all.

If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?

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

Most men spend the best part of their lives making the remaining part wretched.

A faithless woman, if known to be such by the person concerned, is but faithless; if she is believed faithful, she is treacherous.

Rarely do they appear great before their valets.

When we are young we lay up for old age; when we are old we save for death.

One must laugh before one is happy, or one may die without ever laughing at all.

Most men spend the first half of their lives making the second half miserable.

Don't wait to be happy to laugh... You may die and never have laughed.

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

The fear of old age disturbs us, yet we are not certain of becoming old.

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.

One faithful Friend is enough for a man's self, 'tis much to meet with such an one, yet we can't have too many for the sake 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.

Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.

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

Tyranny has no need of arts or sciences, for its policy, which is very shallow and without any refinement, only consists in shedding blood.

No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends as to give them no cause to miss him less.

There are only two ways by which to rise in this world, either by one's own industry or by the stupidity of others.

To forget someone means to think of him.

Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.

We never deceive people to benefit them, for knavery is a compound of wickedness and falsehood.

We should like those whom we love to receive all their happiness, or, if this were impossible, all their unhappiness from our hands.

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.

He who has lived a day has lived an age.

A man has made great progress in cunning when he does not seem too clever to others.

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

Days, months, years fly away, and irrecoverably sink in the abyss of time.

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.

It is too much for a husband to have a wife who is a coquette and sanctimonious as well; she should select only one of those qualities.

The finest pleasure is kindness to others.

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

There is nothing men are so anxious to keep, and yet are so careless about, as life.

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

Men fall from great fortune because of the same shortcomings that led to their rise.

For a long time visits among lovers and professions of love are kept up through habit, after their behavior has plainly proved that love no longer exists.

To express truth is to write naturally, forcibly, and delicately.

A man who has schemed for some time can no longer do without it; all other ways of living are to him dull and insipid.

Envy and hatred go together. Mutually strengthened by the fact pursue the same object.

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.

If men wish to be held in esteem, they must associate with those only who are estimable.

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 same vices which are huge and insupportable in others we do not feel in ourselves.

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

We must confess that at present the rich predominate, but the future will be for the virtuous and ingenious.

A man must be completely wanting in intelligence if he does not show it when actuated by love, malice, or necessity.

The same amount of pride which makes a man treat haughtily his inferiors, makes him cringe servilely; to those above him.

Most men employ the first part of life to make the other part miserable. [Fr., La plupart des hommes emploient la premiere part vie a rendre l'autre miserable.]

To how many girls has a great beauty been of no other use but to make them expect a large fortune!