Quote

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.

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
Almost
Kept
Secret
Confidence
Perfect
Circumstances
Tell
Single
Another
Already
Conceal
Back
Ought
Circumstance
Everything
Told
Placed
Much
Dangerous
Occasions

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One mark of a second-rate mind is to be always telling stories.
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Mockery is often the result of a poverty of wit.
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During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.
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A woman with eyes only for one person, or with eyes always averted from him, creates exactly the same impression.
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When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.
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Making a book is a craft, like making a clock it needs more than native wit to be an author.
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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.
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A guilty man is punished as an example for the mob an innocent man convicted is the business of every honest citizen.
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Between good sense and good taste there lies the difference between a cause and its effect.
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A dogmatic tone is generally inspired by abysmal ignorance. The man who knows nothing thinks he is informing others of something which he has that moment learnt the man who knows a great deal can scarcely believe that people are ignorant of what he is telling them, and speaks more diffidently.
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A man is rich whose income is larger than his expenses, and he is poor if his expenses are greater than his income.
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Love receives its death-wound from aversion, and forgetfulness buries it.
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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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Everything has been said, and we have come too late, now that men have been living and thinking for seven thousand years and more.
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There is not in the world so toilsome a trade as the pursuit of fame life concludes before you have so much as sketched your work.
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A long disease seems to be a halting place between life and death, that death itself may be a comfort to those who die and to those who are left behind.
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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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A man without characteristics is a most insipid character.
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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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Great things only require to be simply told, for they are spoiled by emphasis but little things should be clothed in lofty language, as they are only kept up by expression, tone of voice, and style of delivery.
Jean de la Bruyere