JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE QUOTES V

French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)

During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Affections", Les Caractères

Tags: pleasure


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Mankind", Les Caractères

Tags: old age


Life is short and tedious, and is wholly spent in wishing; we trust to find rest and enjoyment at some future time, often at an age when our best blessings, youth and health, have already left us. When at last I that time has arrived, it surprises us in the midst of fresh desires; we have got no farther when we are attacked by a fever which kills us; if we had been cured, it would only have been to give us more time for other desires.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Mankind", Les Caractères

Tags: desire


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

Tags: mediocrity


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Affections", Les Caractères


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères


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.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Personal Merit", 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


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYERE

The Characters or Manners of the Present Age

Tags: modesty


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères

Tags: truth


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

Tags: writing


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


Let us not envy a certain class of men for their enormous riches; they have paid such an equivalent for them that it would not suit us; they have given for them their peace of mind, their health, their honour, and their conscience; this is rather too dear, and there is nothing to be made out of such a bargain.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères

Tags: wealth


If women were by nature what they make themselves by art; if they were to lose suddenly all the freshness of their complexion, and their faces to become as fiery and as leaden as they make them with the red and the paint they besmear themselves with, they would consider themselves the most wretched creatures on earth.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Women", Les Caractères

Tags: makeup


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Affections", Les Caractères


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.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Court", Les Caractères


When, after having read a work, loftier thoughts arise in your mind and noble and heartfelt feelings animate you, do not look for any other rule to judge it by; it is fine and written in a masterly manner.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères

Tags: reading


The same principle leads us to neglect a man of merit that induces us to admire a fool.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

Les Caractères

Tags: merit


That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good; if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings; and if he should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further: it is heroic, it is perfect.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères


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.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Affections", Les Caractères

Tags: vice