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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.
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
Work
Acquired
Indifferent
Reputation
Value
Already
Values
Perfect
Enhance
Easy
Obtain
More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere
If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man.
Jean de la Bruyere
The art of conversation consists far less in displaying much wit oneself than in helping others to be witty: the man who leaves your company pleased with himself and his own wit is very well pleased with you.
Jean de la Bruyere
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
The punishment of a criminal is an example to the rabble but every decent man is concerned if an innocent person is condemned.
Jean de la Bruyere
A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.
Jean de la Bruyere
To express truth is to write naturally, forcibly, and delicately.
Jean de la Bruyere
Children enjoy the present because they have neither a past nor a future.
Jean de la Bruyere
Children are overbearing, supercilious, passionate, envious, inquisitive, egotistical, idle, fickle, timid, intemperate, liars, and dissemblers they laugh and weep easily, are excessive in their joys and sorrows, and that about the most trifling objects they bear no pain, but like to inflict it on others already they are men.
Jean de la Bruyere
Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.
Jean de la Bruyere
I am not surprised that there are gambling houses, like so many snares laid for human avarice like abysses where many a man's money is engulfed and swallowed up without any hope of return like frightful rocks against which the gamblers are thrown and perish.
Jean de la Bruyere
A faithless woman, if known to be such by the person concerned, is but faithless if she is believed faithful, she is treacherous.
Jean de la Bruyere
Children are contemptuous, haughty, irritable, envious, sneaky, selfish, lazy, flighty, timid, liars and hypocrites, quick to laugh and cry, extreme in expressing joy and sorrow, especially about trifles, they'll do anything to avoid pain but they enjoy inflicting it: little men already.
Jean de la Bruyere
The nearer we come to great men the more clearly we see that they are only men. They rarely seem great to their valets.
Jean de la Bruyere
When a secret is revealed, it is the fault of the man who confided it.
Jean de la Bruyere
The court is like a palace built of marble I mean that it is made up of very hard but very polished people. [Fr., La cour est comme un edifice bati de marbre je veux dire qu'elle est composee d'hommes fort durs mais fort polis.]
Jean de la Bruyere
Anything is a temptation to those who dread it.
Jean de la Bruyere
A great mind is above insults, injustice, grief, and raillery, and would be invulnerable were it not open to compassion.
Jean de la Bruyere
We wish to constitute all the happiness, or, if that cannot be, the misery of the one we love.
Jean de la Bruyere
When we have run through all forms of government, without partiality to that we were born under, we are at a loss with which to side they are all a compound of good and evil. It is therefore most reasonable and safe to value that of our own country above all others, and to submit to it.
Jean de la Bruyere
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!
Jean de la Bruyere