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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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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
Voice
Emphasis
Language
Require
Littles
Tone
Little
Kept
Great
Expression
Clothed
Things
Style
Delivery
Told
Spoiled
Simply
Lofty
More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere
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
A man must have very eminent qualities to hold his own without being polite.
Jean de la Bruyere
Friendship * * * is a long time in forming, it is of slow growth, through many trials and months of familiarity.
Jean de la Bruyere
People reveal their character even in the simplest things they do. Fools do not enter a room, nor leave it, nor sit down, nor rise, nor are they silent, nor do they stand up, like people of sense and understanding.
Jean de la Bruyere
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
Life is a kind of sleep: old men sleep longest, nor begin to wake but when they are to die.
Jean de la Bruyere
An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in censure, but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his conversation.
Jean de la Bruyere
How happy the station which every moment furnishes opportunities of doing good to thousands! How dangerous that which every moment exposes to the injuring of millions!
Jean de la Bruyere
It is better to expose ourselves to ingratitude than to neglect our duty to the distressed.
Jean de la Bruyere
Party loyalty lowers the greatest men to the petty level of the masses.
Jean de la Bruyere
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.
Jean de la Bruyere
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
There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.
Jean de la Bruyere
We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood.
Jean de la Bruyere
The rarest things in the world, next to a spirit of discernment, are diamonds and pearls. [Fr., Apres l'esprit de discernement, ce qu'il y a au monde de plus rare, ce sont les diamants et les perles.]
Jean de la Bruyere
To express truth is to write naturally, forcibly, and delicately.
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
We meet With few utterly dull and stupid souls: the sublime and transcendent are still fewer the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes: the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.
Jean de la Bruyere
He who only writes to suit the taste of the age, considers himself more than his writings. We should always aim at perfection, and then posterity will do us that justice which sometimes our contemporaries refuse us.
Jean de la Bruyere
Time makes friendship stronger, but love weaker.
Jean de la Bruyere
