Jean de la Bruyere

Jean de la Bruyere
Jean de La Bruyèrewas a French philosopher and moralist...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
CountryFrance
challenges cost birth
High birth is a gift of fortune which should never challenge esteem towards those who receive it, since it costs them neither study nor labor.
life birthday age
They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
men birth-life-and-death suffering
There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.
birth-life-and-death suffering three
There are three great events in our lives: birth, life and death. Of birth we have no conscience; with death, we suffer; and, concerning life, we forget to live it.
causes merit birth
A lofty birth or a large fortune portend merit, and cause it to be the sooner noticed.
ambitious french-philosopher man masters people useful
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.
french-philosopher man miss necessary
No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.
belief discovers french-writer god
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.
fear laugh laughed
We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.
children happens neither nor seldom thus
Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us.
atheist kings men
A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.
world fame pursuit
There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame; life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.
honor way popularity
There is what is called the highway to posts and honor, and there is a cross and by way, which is much the shortest.
infinite eternity certain
Whatever is certain in death is slightly alleviated by what is not so infallible; the time when it shall happen is undefined, but it is more or less connected with the infinite, and what we call eternity.