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
Lying
Pleased
Less
Perfectly
Others
Leaves
Wells
Drawing
Well
Gift
Great
Lies
Conversation
Displaying
Company
Cleverness

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Next to sound judgment, diamonds and pearls are the rarest things in the world.
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Languages are the keys of science.
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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.
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Making a book is a craft, like making a clock it needs more than native wit to be an author.
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A man often runs the risk of throwing away a witticism if he admits that it is his own.
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Duty is what goes most against the grain, because in doing that we do only what we are strictly obliged to, and are seldom much praised for it.
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The beginning and the end of love are both marked by embarrassment when the two find themselves alone. [Fr., Le commencement et le declin de l'amour se font sentir par l'embarras ou l'on est de se trouver seuls.]
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For a woman to be at once a coquette and a bigot is more than the humblest of husbands can bear she should mercifully choose between the two.
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Make me chaste and To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!
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Manners carry the world for the moment, character for all time.
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Children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already.
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A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.
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A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd.
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He who knows how to wait for what he desires does not feel very desperate if he fails in obtaining it and he, on the contrary, who is very impatient in procuring a certain thing, takes so much pains about it, that, even when he is successful, he does not think himself sufficiently rewarded.
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All the worth of some people lies in their name upon a closer inspection it dwindles to nothing, but from a distance it deceives us.
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Friendship * * * is a long time in forming, it is of slow growth, through many trials and months of familiarity.
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Eloquence may be found in conversations and in all kinds of writings it is rarely found when looked for, and sometimes discovered where it is least expected.
Jean de la Bruyere
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It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.
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Logic is the art of making truth prevail.
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Great things only require to be simply told, for they are spoiled by emphasis but little things should be clothed in lofty language, as they are only kept up by expression, tone of voice, and style of delivery.
Jean de la Bruyere