Quote

For some people, speaking and giving offence are one and the same thing. They are spiteful and bitter their style is infused with gall and wormwood mockery, abuse and insults flow from their lips like spittle.

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
Giving
Mockery
Thing
Bitter
Spittle
Like
Abuse
Wormwood
People
Speaking
Gall
Lips
Infused
Flow
Spiteful
Style
Insults
Speak
Offence

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A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.
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Make me chaste and To what excesses will men not go for the sake of a religion in which they believe so little and which they practice so imperfectly!
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You think him to be your dupe if he feigns to be so who is the greater dupe, he or you?
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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.
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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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A simple garb is the proper costume of the vulgar it is cut for them, and exactly suits their measure, but it is an ornament for those who have filled up their lives with great deeds. I liken them to beauty in dishabille, but more bewitching on that account.
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If some persons died, and others did not die, death would be a terrible affliction.
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The great gift of conversation lies less in displaying it ourselves than in drawing it out of others. He who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own cleverness is perfectly well pleased with you.
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Women become attached to men by the intimacies they grant them men are cured of their love by the same intimacies.
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Genius and great abilities are often wanting sometimes, only opportunities. Some deserve praise for what they have done others for what they would have done.
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We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
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We wish to constitute all the happiness, or, if that cannot be, the misery of the one we love.
Jean de la Bruyere
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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
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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.
Jean de la Bruyere
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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
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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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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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If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.
Jean de la Bruyere
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How much wit, good-nature, indulgences, how many good offices and civilities, are required among friends to accomplish in some years what a lovely face or a fine hand does in a minute!
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Physiognomy is not a guide that has been given us by which to judge of the character of men: it may only serve us for conjecture. [Fr., La physionomie n'est pas une regle qui nous soit donnee pour juger des hommes elle nous peut servir de conjecture.]
Jean de la Bruyere