“There are only 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
“Out of difficulties grow miracles.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by: the work is good, the product of a master craftsman.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Two quite opposite qualities equally bias our minds – habits and novelty.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Love and friendship exclude each other.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“It is a sad thing when men have neither the wit to speak well nor the judgment to hold their tongues.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Logic is the technique by which we add conviction to truth.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other’s little failings.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“All men’s misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Liberality consists less in giving a great deal than in gifts well-timed.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle; it suggests the idea of one.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“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
“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“At the beginning and at the end of love, the two lovers are embarrassed to find themselves alone.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Man has but three events in his life: to be born, to live, and to die. He is not conscious of his birth, he suffers at his death and he forgets to live.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present, which seldom happens to us.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discovers to me his existence.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“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.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“No man is so perfect, so necessary to his friends, as to give them no cause to miss him less.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“It’s motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“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.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“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
“One seeks to make the loved one entirely happy, or, if that cannot be, entirely wretched.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“This great misfortune – to be incapable of solitude.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The sweetest of all sounds is that of the voice of the woman we love.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“A man of the world must seem to be what he wishes to be thought.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Poverty may be the mother of crime, but lack of good sense is the father.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The court is like a palace of marble; it’s composed of people very hard and very polished.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“I would not like to see a person who is sober, moderate, chaste and just say that there is no God. They would speak disinterestedly at least, but such a person is not to be found.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“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.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“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
“They that have lived a single day have lived an age.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Politeness makes one appear outwardly as they should be within.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“We should keep silent about those in power; to speak well of them almost implies flattery; to speak ill of them while they are alive is dangerous, and when they are dead is cowardly.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The regeneration of society is the regeneration of society by individual education.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part; what does it cost to add a smile?”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Men blush less for their crimes than for their weaknesses and vanity.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“A man can keep another’s secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Everything has been said, and we are more than seven thousand years of human thought too late.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
“As favor and riches forsake a man, we discover in him the foolishness they concealed, and which no one perceived before.”
― Jean de la Bruyere
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