Quote

We ought not to make those people our enemies who might have become our friends, if we had only known them better.

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
Enemy
Friends
Known
Become
Better
Might
Make
Enemies
People
Ought

More quotes by Jean de la Bruyere

Image
We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.
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
Languages are the keys of science.
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 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.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
We can recognize the dawn and the decline of love by the uneasiness we feel when alone together.
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
A man can deceive a woman by his sham attachment to her provided he does not have a real attachment elsewhere.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture. MARTIN LUTHER, letter to Chancellor Gregory Brück, January 13, 1524 Marriage, it seems, confines every man to his proper rank.
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
Image
It seems to me that the spirit of politeness is a certain attention in causing that, by our words and by our manners, others may be content with us and with themselves.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatic. The man who knows nothing thinks he is teaching others what he has just learned himself the man who knows a great deal can't imagine that what he is saying is not common knowledge, and speaks more indifferently.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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
Image
There are some men who turn a deaf ear to reason and good advice, and willfully go wrong for fear of being controlled.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
A man reveals his character even in the simplest things he does.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I call worldly or earthly those whose minds and hearts are fixed on a tiny portion of this world they live in, which is our earth who respect and love nothing beyond it: people as limited as what they call their property or their estate, which can be measured, whose acres can be counted, whose boundaries can be shown.
Jean de la Bruyere
Image
Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its shortness.
Jean de la Bruyere