French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
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"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
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
Nothing resembles today so much as tomorrow.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
attributed, Day's Collacon
We never love with all our heart and all our soul but once, and that is the first time.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
It is no more in our power to love always than it was not to love at all.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
To express truth is to write naturally, forcibly, and delicately.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
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
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.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Women", Les Caractères
Friendship can exist between persons of different sexes, without any coarse or sensual feelings; yet a woman always looks upon a man as a man, and so a man will look upon a woman as a woman.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
A long disease seems to be a halting place between life and death, that death itself may be a comfort to those who die and to those who are left behind.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
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
Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Women", Les Caractères
We confide our secret to a friend, but in love it escapes us.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", 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
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
The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
Les Caractères ou les Moeurs de ce siecle
When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a Vizor and a Face.
JEAN DE LA BRUYERE
The Characters or Manners of the Present Age
In the world there are only two ways of raising one's self, either by one's own industry or by the weakness of others.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations