Jean de la Bruyere
Jean de la Bruyere
Jean de La Bruyèrewas a French philosopher and moralist...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
CountryFrance
work believe people
The best way to get on in the world is to make people believe it's to their advantage to help you.
greatness faces kind
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.
love life aggravation
We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.
smile giving add
It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?
life birthday age
They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
mediocrity painting public-speaking
There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.
death hate passion
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.
funny humorous ideas
The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.
mother father may
Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.
love life ifs
One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.
men vanity weakness
Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.
book needs crafts
Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.
cutting simple filled-up
A simple garb is the proper costume of the vulgar; it is cut for them, and exactly suits their measure, but it is an ornament for those who have filled up their lives with great deeds. I liken them to beauty in dishabille, but more bewitching on that account.
love dream thinking
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.