JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE QUOTES III

French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)

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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères

Tags: writing


We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères

Tags: originality


Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatical.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères

Tags: ignorance


Women become attached to men through the favours they grant them, but men are cured of their love through those same favours.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Women", Les Caractères

Tags: dating


If life be wretched, it is hard to bear it; if it be happy, it is horrible to lose it ; both come to the same thing.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Mankind", Les Caractères

Tags: life


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Women", Les Caractères


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.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères


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

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères

Tags: pride


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


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


To speak and to offend is with some people but one and the same thing.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Society and of Conversation", 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

Tags: language


There are certain people who so ardently and so passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of the Affections", Les Caractères


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


The favor of princes does not preclude the existence of merit, and yet does not prove that it exists.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

Les Caractères

Tags: merit


All confidence placed in another is dangerous if it is not perfect, for on almost all occasions we ought to tell everything or to conceal everything. We have already told too much of our secret, if one single circumstance is to be kept back.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères

Tags: secrets


A great mind is above insults, injustice, grief, and raillery, and would be invulnerable were it not open to compassion.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Mankind", Les Caractères

Tags: compassion


A man must be very inert to have no character at all.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères

Tags: character


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

Tags: science


The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself.

JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE

"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères

Tags: conversation