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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.

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
Nothing
Undone
Thing
Dread
Make
Losing
People
Lose
Leave
Loses
Desire
Ardently
Certain
Passionately

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This great misfortune, to be incapable of solitude.
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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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If a handsome woman allows that another woman is beautiful, we may safely conclude she excels her.
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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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The Opera is obviously the first draft of a fine spectacle it suggests the idea of one.
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The fears of old age disturb us, yet how few attain it?
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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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Misers are neither relations, nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even human beings.
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All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.
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The nearer we come to great men the more clearly we see that they are only men. They rarely seem great to their valets.
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A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.
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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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The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.
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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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We dread old age, which are not sure of being able to attain. [Fr., L'on craint la vieillesse, que l'on n'est pas sur de pouvoir atteindre.]
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It's motive alone which gives character to the actions of men.
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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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All confidence placed in another is dangerous if it is not perfect, for on almost all occasions we ought to tell everything or to conceal everything. We have already told too much of our secret, if one single circumstance is to be kept back.
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