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It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part what does it cost to add a smile?

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
Giving
Boorish
Add
Hardest
Smile
Cost
Part
Doe
Live

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

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It is a fool's privilege to laugh at an intelligent man.
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Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to talk less or if you must talk, say little.
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There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it.
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The whole genius of an author consists in describing well, and delineating character well. Homer, Plato, Virgil, Horace only excel other writers by their expressions and images we must indicate what is true if we mean to write naturally, forcibly and delicately.
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The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures, consists in promoting the pleasure of others.
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Criticism is as often a trade as a science, requiring, as it does, more health than wit, more labour than capacity, more practice than genius.
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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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A person's worth in this world is estimated according to the value he puts on himself.
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Most men spend the best part of their lives making the remaining part wretched.
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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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It is not so easy to obtain a reputation by a perfect work as to enhance the value of an indifferent one by a reputation already acquired.
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An assembly of the states, 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.
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The highest reach of a news-writer is an empty Reasoning on Policy, and vain Conjectures on the public Management.
Jean de la Bruyere
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All the world says of a coxcomb that he is a coxcomb but no one dares to say so to his face, and he dies without knowing it.
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We should only endeavour to think and speak correctly ourselves, without wishing to bring others over to our taste and opinions.
Jean de la Bruyere
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When a plain-looking woman is loved, it is certain to be very passionately for either her influence on her lover is irresistible, or she has some secret and more irresistible charms than those of beauty.
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We need not envy certain people their great wealth they acquired it at a heavy cost, which would not suit us they staked their rest, their health, their honour and their conscience to acquire it, the price is too high, and there is nothing to be gained by such a bargain.
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Children are overbearing, supercilious, passionate, envious, inquisitive, egotistical, idle, fickle, timid, intemperate, liars, and dissemblers they laugh and weep easily, are excessive in their joys and sorrows, and that about the most trifling objects they bear no pain, but like to inflict it on others already they are men.
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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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A faithless woman, if known to be such by the person concerned, is but faithless if she is believed faithful, she is treacherous.
Jean de la Bruyere