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If it be usual to be strongly impressed by things that are scarce, why are we so little impressed by virtue?

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
Little
Things
Scarce
Strongly
Impressed
Usual
Virtue
Littles

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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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Misers are neither relations, nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even human beings.
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The events we most desire do not happen or, if they do, it is neither in the time nor in the circumstances when they would have given us extreme pleasure.
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A heap of epithets is poor praise: the praise lies in the facts, and in the way of telling them.
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I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others.
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All men's misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
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Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches their burden would be too heavy for us we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor and conscience, to obtain them: It is to pay so dear from them that the bargain is a loss.
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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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We are valued in this world at the rate we desire to be valued.
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Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.
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He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.
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When a man puts on a Character he is a stranger to, there's as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a VIzor and a Face.
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Intelligence is to genius as the whole is in proportion to its part. [Fr., Entre esprit et talent il y a la proportion du tout a sa partie.]
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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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Wit is the god of moments, but Genius is the god of ages.
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Languages are no more than the keys of Sciences. He who despises one, slights the other.
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It is a proof of boorishness to confer a favor with a bad grace it is the act of giving that is hard and painful. How little does a smile cost?
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Laziness begat wearisomeness, and this put men in quest of diversions, play and company, on which however it is a constant attendant he who works hard, has enough to do with himself otherwise.
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A party spirit betrays the greatest men to act as meanly as the vulgar herd.
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It is virtue which should determine us in the choice of our friends, without inquiring into their good or evil fortune.
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