A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.
– Jean de la Bruyere
A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.
– Jean de la Bruyere
A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.
– Jean de la Bruyere
A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.
– Jean de la Bruyere
All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
– Jean de la Bruyere
At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest ma to do.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.
– Jean de la Bruyere
He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.
– Jean de la Bruyere
I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found.
– Jean de la Bruyere
If our life is unhappy it is painful to bear; if it is happy it is horrible to lose, So the one is pretty equal to the other.
– Jean de la Bruyere
If poverty is the mother of crime, lack of good sense is the father.
– Jean de la Bruyere
If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.
– Jean de la Bruyere
It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.
– Jean de la Bruyere
It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Man has but three events in his life: to be born, to live, and to die. He is not conscious of his birth, he suffers at his death and he forgets to live.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
– Jean de la Bruyere
No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.
– Jean de la Bruyere
No more we meet in yonder bowers Absence has made me prone to roving; But older, firmer hearts than ours, Have found monotony in loving.
– Jean de la Bruyere
One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
– Jean de la Bruyere
One should never risk a joke, even of the mildest and most unexceptional charters, except among people of culture and wit.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The passion of hatred is so long lived and so obstinate a malady that the surest sign of death in a sick person is their desire for reconciliation.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.
– Jean de la Bruyere
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 Bruyere
There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.
– Jean de la Bruyere
There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.
– Jean de la Bruyere
They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
– Jean de la Bruyere
This great misfortune - to be incapable of solitude.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.
– Jean de la Bruyere
To be among people one loves, that's sufficient; to dream, to speak to them, to be silent among them, to think of indifferent things; but among them, everything is equal.
– Jean de la Bruyere
We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.
– Jean de la Bruyere
We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.
– Jean de la Bruyere
We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
– Jean de la Bruyere
We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.
– Jean de la Bruyere
When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker.
– Jean de la Bruyere
The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Love and friendship exclude each other.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.
– Jean de la Bruyere
It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part what does it cost to add a smile?
– Jean de la Bruyere
It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.
– Jean de la Bruyere
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
– Jean de la Bruyere
All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.