Quote

We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood.

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
Malice
Deceiving
Deceit
Falsehood
Add
Purpose
Knavery
Good
Deceive
Never
Adds

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

Image
We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A prince wants only the pleasure of private life to complete his happiness.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
To give awkwardly is churlishness. The most difficult part is to give, then why not add a smile?
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A man who knows how to make good bargains or finds his money increase in his coffers, thinks presently that he has a good deal of brains and is almost fit to be a statesman.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
We are valued in this world at the rate we desire to be valued.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A man of variable mind is not one man, but several men in one he multiplies himself as often as he changes his taste and manners he is not this minute what he was the last, and will not be the next what he is now he is his own successor.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
To how many girls has a great beauty been of no other use but to make them expect a large fortune!
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A woman with eyes only for one person, or with eyes always averted from him, creates exactly the same impression.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Cunning is none of the best nor worst qualities it floats between virtue and vice there is scarce any exigence where it may not, and perhaps ought not to be supplied by prudence.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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.
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
The opposite of what is noised about concerning men and things is often the truth. [Fr., Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la verite.]
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A man who is free and unmarried, if he has some intelligence, can rise above his fortune, mingle in society and meet the best people on an equal footing. This is harder for a married man: marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock something more than intelligence is required to become an author.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
The pleasure we feel in criticizing robs us from being moved by very beautiful things.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
It is boorish to live ungraciously: the giving is the hardest part what does it cost to add a smile?
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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.
Jean de la Bruyere