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There is a false modesty, which is vanity a false glory, which is levity a false grandeur, which is meanness a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.

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
Vanity
False
Prudery
Glory
Levity
Virtue
Meanness
Wisdom
Grandeur
Modesty
Hypocrisy

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Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.
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The doctors allow one to die, the charlatans kill.
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Nothing more clearly shows how little God esteems his gift to men of wealth, money, position and other worldly goods, than the way he distributes these, and the sort of men who are most amply provided with them.
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When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.
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Foolish jokers are thick on the ground, and it rains insects of that sort everywhere. A good joker is a rarity even a man who is such by nature finds it hard to sustain the part for long it seldom happens that the man who makes us laugh wins our esteem.
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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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Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.
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A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.
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The first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest.
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The finest and most beautiful ideas on morals and manners have been swept away before our times, and nothing is left for us but to glean after the ancients and the ablest amongst the moderns.
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The Great slight the men of wit, who have nothing but wit the men of wit despise the Great, who have nothing but greatness the good man pities them both, if with greatness or wit they have not virtue.
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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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A man can keep another's secret better than his own. A woman her own better than others.
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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 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.]
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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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Praise, of all things, is the most powerful excitement to commendable actions, and animates us in our enterprises.
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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.
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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.
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We all covet wealth, but not its perils.
Jean de la Bruyere