French philosopher and moralist (1645-1696)
There is no business in this world so troublesome as the pursuit of fame: life is over before you have hardly begun your work.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
A lofty birth or a large fortune portend merit, and cause it to be the sooner noticed.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Gifts of Fortune", Les Caractères
Some men promise to keep your secret and yet reveal it without knowing they are doing so; they do not wag their lips, and yet they are understood; it is read on their brow and in their eyes; it is seen through their breast; they are transparent.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
Courtly manners are contagious; they are caught at Versailles.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Court", Les Caractères
I call those men worldly, earthly, or coarse, whose hearts and minds are wholly fixed on this earth, that small part of the universe they are placed in ; who value and love nothing beyond it ; whose minds are as cramped as that narrow spot of ground they call their estate, of which the extent is measured, the acres are numbered, and the limits well known.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Freethinkers", Les Caractères
If a secret is revealed, the person who has confided it to another is to be blamed.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Society and of Conversation", Les Caractères
Love, slow and gradual in its growth, is too much like friendship ever to be a violent passion.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
It is difficult for a proud man ever to forgive a person who has found him at fault, and who has good grounds for complaining of him; his pride is not assuaged till he has regained the advantages he lost and put the other person in the wrong.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Love receives its death-wound from aversion, and forgetfulness buries it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
We should only endeavour to think and speak correctly ourselves, without wishing to bring others over to our taste and opinions.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Works of the Mind", Les Caractères
A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Mankind", Les Caractères