French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)
It is a sad thing when men have neither enough intelligence to speak well nor enough sense to hold their tongues.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
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
If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
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
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
Some people pretend they never were in love and never wrote poetry; two weaknesses which they dare not own -- one of the heart, the other of the mind.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a large one.
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
He who only writes to suit the taste of the age, considers himself more than his writings. We should always aim at perfection, and then posterity will do us that justice which sometimes our contemporaries refuse us.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
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
A man in health questions whether there is a God, and he also doubts whether it be a sin to have intercourse with a woman, who is at liberty to refuse ; but when he falls ill, or when his mistress is with child, she is discarded, and he believes in God.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Freethinkers", Les Caractères
To bewail the loss of a person we love is a happiness compared with the necessity of living with one we hate.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
There are some extraordinary fathers, who seem, during the whole course of their lives, to be preparing reasons for their children for being consoled at their deaths.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères
Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères
What the people call eloquence is the facility some persons have of speaking alone and for a long time, aided by extravagant gestures, a loud voice, and powerful lungs.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
It is not so easy to obtain a reputation by a perfect work as to enhance the value of an indifferent one by a reputation already acquired.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
Life is short, if we are only said to live when we enjoy ourselves; and if we were merely to count up the hours we spent agreeably, a great number of years would hardly make up a life of a few months.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Children are overbearing, supercilious, passionate, envious, inquisitive, egotistical, idle, fickle, timid, intemperate, liars, and dissemblers; they laugh and weep easily, are excessive in their joys and sorrows, and that about the most trifling objects; they bear no pain, but like to inflict it on others; already they are men.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères