Quote

Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.

Jean de la Bruyere

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Made
Measure
Garments
Men
Deeds
Thereby
Like
Filled
Outward
Ordinary
Serves
Beauty
Dressed
Befits
Lives
Compared
Carelessly
Might
Attractive
Adornment
Great
Simplicity
Garment

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

Image
The sublime only paints the true, and that too in noble objects it paints it in all its phases, its cause and its effect it is the most worthy expression or image of this truth. Ordinary minds cannot find out the exact expression, and use synonymes.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
It is through madness that we hate an enemy, and think of revenging ourselves and it is through indolence that we are appeased, and do not revenge ourselves.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A man often runs the risk of throwing away a witticism if he admits that it is his own.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
It is the glory and merit of some men to write well and of others not to write at all.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A wise man neither suffers himself to be governed, nor attempts to govern others.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A man unattached and without wife, if he have any genius at all, may raise himself above his original position, may mingle with the world of fashion, and hold himself on a level with the highest this is less easy for him who is engaged it seems as if marriage put the whole world in their proper rank.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Courtly manners are contagious they are caught at Versailles.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
There is no employment in the world so laborious as that of making to one's self a great name life ends before one has scarcely made the first rough draught of his work.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A vain man finds his account in speaking good or evil of himself.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
What is certain in death is somewhat softened by what is uncertain it is an indefiniteness in the time, which holds a certain relation to the infinite, and what is called eternity.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is not, discloses to me His existence. [Fr., L'impossibilite ou je suis de prouver que Dieu n'est pas, me decouvre son existence.]
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Sudden love is latest cured.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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
Image
Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life. It is only found in men of sound sense and understanding.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
When we have run through all forms of government, without partiality to that we were born under, we are at a loss with which to side they are all a compound of good and evil. It is therefore most reasonable and safe to value that of our own country above all others, and to submit to it.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
It would be a kind of ferocity to reject indifferently all sorts of praise. One should be glad to have that which comes from good men who praise in sincerity things that are really praiseworthy.
Jean de la Bruyere