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Jean de la Bruyere Quotes - Page 9

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There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.

There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.

Jean de la Bruyere
People, Desire, Losing

I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture. MARTIN LUTHER, letter to Chancellor Gregory Brück, January 13, 1524 Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.

Jean de la Bruyere
Marriage, Men, Wife

He who excels in his art so as to carry it to the utmost height of perfection of which it is capable may be said in some measure to go beyond it: his transcendent productions admit of no appellations.

Jean de la Bruyere
Art, Perfection, Excellence

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.

Jean de la Bruyere
Book, Reading, Inspire

I call worldly or earthly those whose minds and hearts are fixed on a tiny portion of this world they live in, which is our earth; who respect and love nothing beyond it: people as limited as what they call their property or their estate, which can be measured, whose acres can be counted, whose boundaries can be shown.

Jean de la Bruyere
Heart, Men, Mind
"Of Freethinkers". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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

Jean de la Bruyere
Want, Pleasure, Private Life

Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.

Jean de la Bruyere
Death, Fashion, Husband
"The Women", Aphorism 79,

Avoid making yourself the subject of conversation.

Jean de la Bruyere
Conversation, Egotism, Subjects

A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob; an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.

Jean de la Bruyere
Men, Innocent Man, Example

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.

Jean de la Bruyere
Love, Dream, Thinking

It is through madness that we hate an enemy, and think of revenging ourselves; and it is through indolence that we are appeased, and do not revenge ourselves.

Jean de la Bruyere
Revenge, Hate, Thinking

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.

Jean de la Bruyere
Men, Birth Life And Death, Suffering
The Characters "Of Mankind" (1688) (translation by Henri Van Laun)

How many men are like trees, already strong and full grown, which are transplanted into some gardens, to the astonishment of those people who behold them in these fine spots, where they never saw them grow, and who neither know their beginning nor their progress!

Jean de la Bruyere
Strong, Men, Garden

The sublime only paints the true, and that too in noble objects; it paints it in all its phases, its cause and its effect; it is the most worthy expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find out the exact expression, and use synonymes.

Jean de la Bruyere
Expression, Mind, Sublime

Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.

Jean de la Bruyere
Reflection, Common, Scruples

We ought not to make those people our enemies who might have become our friends, if we had only known them better.

Jean de la Bruyere
People, Enemy, Might

Cheats easily believe others as bad as themselves; there is no deceiving them, nor do they long deceive.

Jean de la Bruyere
Believe, Long, Deceit

The News-writer lies down at Night in great Tranquillity, upon a piece of News which corrupts before Morning, and which he is obliged to throw away as soon as he awakes.

Jean de la Bruyere
Morning, Lying, Night
"The Characters or Manners of the Present Age". Book by Jean de La Bruyère, Chapter I, 1688.

It is because of men that women dislike one another.

Jean de la Bruyere
Women, Men, Dislike

Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can never taste.

Jean de la Bruyere
Friendship, Men, Taste
"The Characters, Or, the Manners of the Present Age". Book by Jean de la Bruyere, Nicholas Rowe and Theophrastus (Chapter V), 1688.

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

Jean de la Bruyere
Widows, Fruit, Ripe Fruit

It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all.

Jean de la Bruyere
Writing, Men, Merit

The whole genius of an author consists in describing well, and delineating character well. Homer, Plato, Virgil, Horace only excel other writers by their expressions and images; we must indicate what is true if we mean to write naturally, forcibly and delicately.

Jean de la Bruyere
Plato, Writing, Character

The fears of old age disturb us, yet how few attain it?

Jean de la Bruyere
Age, Old Age

In all conditions of life a poor man is a near neighbor to an honest one, and a rich man is as little removed from a knave.

Jean de la Bruyere
Men, Littles, Knaves

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