Quote

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

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Jean de la Bruyere
Age: 50 †
Born: 1645
Born: August 16
Died: 1696
Died: May 10
Aphorist
Essayist
French Moralist
Lawyer
Philosopher
Translator
Writer
Paris
France
Jean de La Bruyere
Well
Gift
Great
Lies
Conversation
Displaying
Company
Cleverness
Lying
Pleased
Less
Perfectly
Others
Leaves
Wells
Drawing

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

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Logic is the art of making truth prevail.
Jean de la Bruyere
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During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.
Jean de la Bruyere
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It is a fool's privilege to laugh at an intelligent man.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Misers are neither relations, nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even human beings.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A man who knows how to make good bargains or finds his money increase in his coffers, thinks presently that he has a good deal of brains and is almost fit to be a statesman.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Tyranny has no need of arts or sciences, for its policy, which is very shallow and without any refinement, only consists in shedding blood.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Praise, of all things, is the most powerful excitement to commendable actions, and animates us in our enterprises.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A vain man finds his account in speaking good or evil of himself.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.
Jean de la Bruyere
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If women were by nature what they make themselves by art if they were to lose suddenly all the freshness of their complexion, and their faces to become as fiery and as leaden as they make them with the red and the paint they besmear themselves with, they would consider themselves the most wretched creatures on earth.
Jean de la Bruyere
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It is weakness which makes us hate an enemy and seek revenge, and it is idleness that pacifies us and causes us to neglect it.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A man who is free and unmarried, if he has some intelligence, can rise above his fortune, mingle in society and meet the best people on an equal footing. This is harder for a married man: marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
Jean de la Bruyere
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I do not doubt but that genuine piety is the spring of peace of mind it enables us to bear the sorrows of life, and lessens the pangs of death: the same cannot be said of hypocrisy.
Jean de la Bruyere
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If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.
Jean de la Bruyere
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There are some men who turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and willfully go wrong for fear of being controlled.
Jean de la Bruyere
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When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a VIzor and a Face.
Jean de la Bruyere
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The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.
Jean de la Bruyere
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Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities it floats between virtue and vice there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A man can deceive a woman by his sham attachment to her provided he does not have a real attachment elsewhere.
Jean de la Bruyere
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A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them he prefers that reason alone prevail.
Jean de la Bruyere