Jean de La Bruyère quotes - page 6

Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself; the man who knows a great deal can't imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks more indifferently. (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; 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. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
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. 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: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
The greatest part of mankind employ their first years to make their last miserable. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
The very impossibility which I find to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things. (Jean de La Bruyère)
A modest man never talks of himself. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture it gives it strength and makes it stand out. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Logic is the art of convincing us of some truth. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Children have neither past nor future and that which seldom happens to us, they rejoice in the present. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
We trust our secrets to our friends, But they escape from us in love. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
Eloquence is to the sublime what the part is to the whole. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère
He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it. 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. It had been well for them had they been born mute or stupid; the little vivacity and intelligence they have prejudices them more than dullness does others; they are not always satisfied with giving sharp answers, they often attack arrogantly those who are present, and damage the reputation of those who are absent; they butt all round like rams - for rams, of course, must use their horns. We therefore do not expect, by our sketch of them, to change such coarse, restless, and stubborn individuals. The best thing a man can do is to take to his heels as soon as he perceives them, without even turning round to look behind him. 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. While the association holds and the fashion lasts, they admit nothing well said or well done except by one of themselves, and they are incapable of appeciating anything from another source, to the point of despising those who are not initiated into their mysteries. View quote
Jean de La Bruyère