Jean de La Bruyère quotes - page 5

They that have lived a single day have lived an age. (Jean de La Bruyère)
The shortest and best way to make your fortune is to let people see clearly that it is in their interests to promote yours. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
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. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
There is no excess in the world so commendable as excessive gratitude. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
We seldom repent talking little, but very often talking too much. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
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. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatical. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
What a vast advantage has a speech over a written composition. Men are imposed upon by voice and gesture, and by all that is conducive to enhance the performance. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
To speak and to offend is with some people but one and the same thing; they are biting and bitter; their words are steeped in gall and wormwood; sneers as well as insolent and insulting words flow from their lips. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he does, he is very good. (Jean de La Bruyère)
False greatness is unsociable and remote. 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. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
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. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
The town is divided into various groups, which form so many little states, each with its own laws and customs, its jargon and its jokes. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
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. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
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)
Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he wishes to be valued. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
As long as men are liable to die and are desirous to live, A physician will be made fun of, but he will be well paid. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère