Jean De La Bruyere Quotes

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.

He who will not listen to any advice, nor be corrected in his writings, is a rank pedant.

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

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

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

It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?

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

A wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others.

How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands! How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions!

The noblest deeds are well enough set forth in simple language; emphasis spoils them.

One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.

When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.

It is easier to enrich ourselves with a thousand virtues, than to correct ourselves of a single fault.

When life is unhappy it is hard to endure, when it is happy it is terrible to think of it ending. Both amount to the same thing in the end.

Languages are the keys of science.

Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.

We must strive to make ourselves really worthy of some employment. We need pay no attention to anything else; the rest is the business of others.

A woman with eyes only for one person, or with eyes always averted from him, creates exactly the same impression.

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

The duty of a judge is to administer justice, but his practice is to delay it

The most accomplished literary work would be reduced to nothing by carping criticism, if the author would listen to all critics and allow every one to erase the passage which pleases him the least.

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life. It is only found in men of sound sense and understanding.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discloses to me His existence. [Fr., L'impossibilite ou je suis de prouver que Dieu n'est pas, me decouvre son existence.]

There are some who speak one moment before they think

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

To bewail the loss of a person we love is a happiness compared with the necessity of living with one we hate.

Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.

In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave.

There is a pleasure in meeting the glance of a person whom we have lately laid under some obligations.

Eminent station makes great men more great, and little ones less.

Love, slow and gradual in its growth, is too much like friendship ever to be a violent passion.

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.

A man who knows how to make good bargains or finds his money increase in his coffers, thinks presently that he has a good deal of brains and is almost fit to be a statesman.

Women are at little trouble to express what they do not feel; but men are still at less to express what they do feel.

We confide our secret to a friend, but in love it escapes us.

Make me chaste and To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!

A man without characteristics is a most insipid character.

It is often easier as well as more advantageous to conform to other men's opinions than to bring them over to ours.

We ought not to make those people our enemies who might have become our friends, if we had only known them better.

The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth. [Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.]

It is through madness that we hate an enemy, and think of revenging ourselves; and it is through indolence that we are appeased, and do not revenge ourselves.

Man makes up his mind he will preach, and he preaches.

It is because of men that women dislike one another.

There are three great events in our lives: birth, life and death. Of birth we have no conscience; with death, we suffer; and, concerning life, we forget to live it.

Every hour in itself, as it respects us in particular, is the only one we can call our own.

They that have lived a single day have lived an age.

We rarely repent of speaking little, but often of speaking too much.

Too great carelessness, equally with excess in dress, multiplies the wrinkles of old age, and makes its decay still more conspicuous.

We dread old age, which are not sure of being able to attain. [Fr., L'on craint la vieillesse, que l'on n'est pas sur de pouvoir atteindre.]

Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity. [Fr., Les hommes rougissent moins de leur crimes que de leurs faiblesses et de leur vanite.]