Inspirational Quotes by Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)

Inspirational Quotations by Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)

Jean de La Bruyère (1645–96) was a French writer and one of the great moralists of French classicism. His only work, Les Caractères (1688,) encapsulates the psychological, social, and moral character of the French society of his time.

Not much is known about La Bruyère’s life. Born in Paris, he studied law at Orléans. He became one of the tutors to the Duke de Bourbon, grandson of the Prince de Condé, and remained in the Condé household as a librarian at Chantilly. He never married and died poor.

Les Caractères, fully Les Caractères de Théophraste, traduits du grec, avec les caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle, (1688; The Characters of Theophrastus, Translated from the Greek, with the Characters or Manners of This Century, 1699,) comprises a treatise on the natural philosopher Theophrastus and La Bruyère’s translation of Theophrastus. It is then followed by 420 of La Bruyère’s reflections on the manners of his time.

Les Caractères portrays contemporary French dignitaries with masked names and unmasks the vanity and corruption of human behavior by satirizing Parisian society. Les Caractères was a particular favorite of David Hume and was widely admired by such writers as Gustave Flaubert, André Gide, and Marcel Proust.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jean de La Bruyere

Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Generosity

The pleasure of criticism takes from us that of being deeply moved by very beautiful things.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Critics, Criticism

It is because of men that women dislike one another.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Women

It is a proof of boorishness to confer a favor with a bad grace.—How little does a smile cost!
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Gifts

It’s motive alone that gives character to the actions of men.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Action, Character

Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he wishes to be valued.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Appreciation, Man, Values

It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Anticipation

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Laughter, Happiness, Acting As If

Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Law, Lawyers

A handsome woman who has the qualities of an agreeable man is the most delicious society in the world. She unites the merit of both sexes. Caprice is in the women the antidote to beauty.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Woman

Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other’s little failings.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Friendship, Feelings, Friends, Forgiveness

Jesting is often only indigence of intellect.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Humor

A lovely countenance is the fairest of all sights, and the sweetest harmony is the sound of the voice of her whom we love.
—Jean de La Bruyere

If you wish to be held in esteem, you must associate only with those who are estimable.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Associates

There are but 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.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Carpe-diem

The spendthrift robs his heirs the miser robs himself.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Misery, Money

The passion of hatred is so durable and so inveterate, that the surest prognostic of death in a sick man is a wish for reconciliation.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Hate, Hatred

It is very rare to find ground which produces nothing.—If it is not covered with flowers, fruit trees, and grains, it produces briars and pines.—It is the same with man; if he is not virtuous, he becomes vicious.
—Jean de La Bruyere

It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well, nor judgment to hold their tongues.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Wit, Talking

Too great carelessness, equally with excess in dress, multiplies the wrinkles of old age, and makes its decay more conspicuous.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Dress

Talent, taste, wit, good sense are very different things but by no means incompatible. Between good sense and good taste there exists the same difference as between cause and effect, and between wit and talent there is the same proportion as between a whole and its parts.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Style, Intelligence, Taste

The fears of old age disturb us, yet how few attain it?
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Old Age

We hope to grow old, yet we fear old age; that is, we are willing to live, and afraid to die.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Old Age

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
Topics: Love

For man there are only three important events: birth, life and death; but he is unaware of being born, he suffers when he dies, and he forgets to live.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Life

There is nothing keeps longer than a middling fortune, and nothing melts away sooner than a great one. Poverty treads on the heels of great and unexpected riches.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Courage, Fortune, Poverty, Living

A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Praise

It would be a kind of ferocity to reject indifferently all sorts of praise. One should be glad to have that which comes from good men who praise in sincerity things that are really praiseworthy.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Praise

Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Simplicity

I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I began to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely too eclipse that of others.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Obedience, Merit

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.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Life and Living, Life

The great slight the men of wit who have nothing but wit; the men of wit despise the great who have nothing but greatness; the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit, they have not virtue.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Virtue

An assembly of the states or 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.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Gambling

How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands!—How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Goodness, Future, The Future

It is fortunate to come of distinguished ancestry.—It is not less so to be such that people do not care to inquire whether you are of high descent or not.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Ancestry, Character

A bachelor’s life is a fine breakfast, a flat lunch, and a miserable dinner.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Men

There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.
—Jean de La Bruyere

False modesty is the refinement of vanity. It is a lie.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Modesty

Liberality consists rather in giving seasonably than much.
—Jean de La Bruyere

When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who has entrusted it.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Topics: Secrecy, Secrets, Proverbs