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The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.

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
Early
Lives
Generality
Part
Expend
Men
Generalities
Contributing
Render
Latter
Miserable

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A woman with eyes only for one person, or with eyes always averted from him, creates exactly the same impression.
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The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.
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A person's worth in this world is estimated according to the value he puts on himself.
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Making a book is a craft, like making a clock it needs more than native wit to be an author.
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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.
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There are some extraordinary fathers, who seem, during the whole course of their lives, to be giving their children reasons for being consoled at their death.
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Caprice in woman is the antidote to beauty.
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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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Logic is the art of making truth prevail.
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There are but three events which concern man: birth, life and death. They are unconscious of their birth, they suffer when they die, and they neglect to live.
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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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He who knows how to wait for what he desires does not feel very desperate if he fails in obtaining it and he, on the contrary, who is very impatient in procuring a certain thing, takes so much pains about it, that, even when he is successful, he does not think himself sufficiently rewarded.
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To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock something more than intelligence is required to become an author.
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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.
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Rarely do they appear great before their valets. [Fr., Rarement ils sont grands vis-a-vis de leur valets-de-chambre.]
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The most amiable people are those who least wound the self-love of others.
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The finest and most beautiful ideas on morals and manners have been swept away before our times, and nothing is left for us but to glean after the ancients and the ablest amongst the moderns.
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During the course of our life we now and then enjoy some pleasures so inviting, and have some encounters of so tender a nature, that though they are forbidden, it is but natural to wish that they were at least allowable. Nothing can be more delightful, except it be to abandon them for virtue's sake.
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Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.
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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.
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