Jean de la Bruyere
Jean de la Bruyere
Jean de La Bruyèrewas a French philosopher and moralist...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
CountryFrance
men intelligent laughing
It is a fool's privilege to laugh at an intelligent man.
women men intimacy
Women become attached to men by the intimacies they grant them; men are cured of their love by the same intimacies.
faithful adultery concerned
A faithless woman, if known to be such by the person concerned, is but faithless ; if she is believed faithful, she is treacherous.
beauty girl use
To how many girls has a great beauty been of no other use but to make them expect a large fortune!
children pain liars
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.
criticism would-be accomplished
The most accomplished literary work would be reduced to nothing by carping criticism, if the author would listen to all critics and allow every one to erase the passage which pleases him the least.
wise wisdom men
If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.
poverty results wit
Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.
revenge hate enemy
It is weakness which makes us hate an enemy and seek revenge, and it is idleness that pacifies us and causes us to neglect it.
life blessing giving
Life is short and tedious, and is wholly spent in wishing; we trust to find rest and enjoyment at some future time, often at an age when our best blessings, youth and health, have already left us. When at last I that time has arrived, it surprises us in the midst of fresh desires; we have got no farther when we are attacked by a fever which kills us; if we had been cured, it would only have been to give us more time for other desires.
love hands impossible
We should like those whom we love to receive all their happiness, or, if this were impossible, all their unhappiness from our hands.
perfect secret too-much
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.
spiritual men ideas
What can be more discouraging to a man than to doubt if his soul be material, like a stone or a reptile, and subject to corruption like the vilest creatures? And does it not prove much more strength of mind and grandeur to be able to conceive the idea of a Being superior to all other beings, by whom and for whom all things were made ; of a Being absolutely perfect and pure, without beginning or end, of whom our soul is the image, and of whom, if I may say so, it is a part, because it is spiritual and immortal?
doe vices virtue
No vice exists which does not pretend to be more or less like some virtue, and which does not take advantage of this assumed resemblance.