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Duty is what goes most against the grain, because in doing that we do only what we are strictly obliged to, and are seldom much praised for it.

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
Goes
Much
Praised
Strictly
Obliged
Grain
Seldom
Duty

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We never deceive for a good purpose: knavery adds malice to falsehood.
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Favor exalts a man above his equals, but his dismissal from that favor places him below them.
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Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.
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Languages are the keys of science.
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There are only three events in a man's life birth, life, and death he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.
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Nothing is easier for passion than to overcome reason, but the greatest triumph is to conquer a man's own interests.
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It is better to expose ourselves to ingratitude than to neglect our duty to the distressed.
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Logic is the art of making truth prevail.
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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.
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High birth is a gift of fortune which should never challenge esteem towards those who receive it, since it costs them neither study nor labor.
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Politeness does not always inspire goodness, equity, complaisance, and gratitude it gives at least the appearance of these qualities, and makes man appear outwardly, as he should be within.
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The pleasure a man of honor enjoys in the consciousness of having performed his duty is a reward he pays himself for all his pains.
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Hatred is so lasting and stubborn, that reconciliation on a sickbed certainly forebodes death.
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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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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.
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To express truth is to write naturally, forcibly, and delicately.
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We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
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A faithless woman, if known to be such by the person concerned, is but faithless if she is believed faithful, she is treacherous.
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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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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.
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