Jean de la Bruyere quotes:

Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.

At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.

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.

Love and friendship exclude each other.

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.

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.

The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.

Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.

Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.

The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

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.

If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.

There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death; he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.

Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late.

Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us.

It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?

Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.

A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.

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.

Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.

Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.

Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.

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.

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.

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.

As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.

The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.

It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.

The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.

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.

The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.

Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.

One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.

The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds - habits and novelty.

Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.

The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The beginning and the end of love are both marked by embarrassment when the two find themselves alone. [Fr., Le commencement et le declin de l'amour se font sentir par l'embarras ou l'on est de se trouver seuls.]

You may drive a dog off the King's armchair, and it will climb into the preacher's pulpit; he views the world unmoved, unembarrassed, unabashed.

No road is to long for him who advances slowly and does not hurry and no attainment is beyond his reach who equips himself with patience to achieve it

A man of moderate Understanding, thinks he writes divinely: A man of good Understanding, thinks he writes reasonably.

A man starts upon a sudden, takes Pen, Ink, and Paper, and without ever having had a thought of it before, resolves within himself he will write a Book; he has no Talent at Writing, but he wants fifty Guineas.

Banter is often a proof of want of intelligence.

A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.

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.

A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.

Caprice in woman is the antidote to beauty.

I call those men worldly, earthly, or coarse, whose hearts and minds are wholly fixed on this earth, that small part of the universe they are placed in ; who value and love nothing beyond it ; whose minds are as cramped as that narrow spot of ground they call their estate, of which the extent is measured, the acres are numbered, and the limits well known.

There is no excess in the world so commendable as excessive gratitude.

We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.

Incivility is not a Vice of the Soul, but the effect of several Vices; of Vanity, Ignorance of Duty, Laziness, Stupidity, Distraction, Contempt of others, and Jealousy.

Children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already.

For a woman to be at once a coquette and a bigot is more than the humblest of husbands can bear; she should mercifully choose between the two.

A coquette is one that is never to be persuaded out of the passion she has to please, nor out of a good opinion of her own beauty: time and years she regards as things that only wrinkle and decay other women, forgetting that age is written in the face, and that the same dress which became her when she was young now only makes her look older.

The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.

Sudden love is latest cured.

The reason that women do not love one another is - men.

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.

There are some men who turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and willfully go wrong for fear of being controlled.

Caprice in women often infringes upon the rules of decency.

We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.

The rarest things in the world, next to a spirit of discernment, are diamonds and pearls. [Fr., Apres l'esprit de discernement, ce qu'il y a au monde de plus rare, ce sont les diamants et les perles.]

Out of difficulties grow miracles.

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.

Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.

A prince wants only the pleasure of private life to complete his happiness.

There is no employment in the world so laborious as that of making to one's self a great name; life ends before one has scarcely made the first rough draught of his work.

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant; he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise.

A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.

We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed.

The pleasure of criticizing takes away from us the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things.

To forget someone means to think of him.

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!

It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing; if it is not covered with flowers, with fruit trees and grains, it produces briers and pines. It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.

Born merely for the purpose of digestion.

How much wit, good-nature, indulgences, how many good offices and civilities, are required among friends to accomplish in some years what a lovely face or a fine hand does in a minute!

Both as to high and low indifferently, men are prepossessed, charmed, fascinated by success; successful crimes are praised very much like virtue itself, and good fortune is not far from occupying the place of the whole cycle of virtues. It must be an atrocious act, a base and hateful deed, which success would not be able to justify.

The very impossibility which I find to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.

Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.

A judge's duty is to grant justice, but his practice is to delay it: even those judges who know their duty adhere to the general practice.

The finest pleasure is kindness to others.

We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood.

All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.

A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.

The spendthrift robs his heirs the miser robs himself.

Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.

A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.

Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.

It is motive alone that gives real value to the actions of men, and disinterestedness puts the cap to it.

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.

Lofty posts make great men greater still, and small men much smaller.

When we have run through all forms of government, without partiality to that we were born under, we are at a loss with which to side; they are all a compound of good and evil. It is therefore most reasonable and safe to value that of our own country above all others, and to submit to it.

All the worth of some people lies in their name; upon a closer inspection it dwindles to nothing, but from a distance it deceives us.

I do not doubt but that genuine piety is the spring of peace of mind; it enables us to bear the sorrows of life, and lessens the pangs of death: the same cannot be said of hypocrisy.

A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.

The court is like a palace built of marble; I mean that it is made up of very hard but very polished people. [Fr., La cour est comme un edifice bati de marbre; je veux dire qu'elle est composee d'hommes fort durs mais fort polis.]

I take sanctuary in an honest mediocrity.

An assembly of the states, a court of justice, shows nothing so serious and grave as a table of gamesters playing very high; a melancholy solicitude clouds their looks; envy and rancor agitate their minds while the meeting lasts, without regard to friendship, alliances, birth or distinctions.

The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.

Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.

Widows, like ripe fruit, drop easily from their perch.

We see men fall from high estate on account of the very faults through which they attained it

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

The very essence of politeness is to take care that by our words and actions we make other people pleased with us as well as with themselves.

The unnamed should not be mistaken for the nonexistent.

He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.

It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.

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.

We trust our secrets to our friends, but they escape from us in love.

Tyranny has no need of arts or sciences, for its policy, which is very shallow and without any refinement, only consists in shedding blood.

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.